Study finds that New England will struggle to fill advanced manufacturing jobs

Article published on VPR website, June, 2, 2015.

Advanced manufacturing fields like aerospace, biotechnology and defense are areas with great potential for our region. But a study commissioned by the New England Council also found some challenges.

The study, conducted by Deloitte Consulting, says as many as 100,000 advanced manufacturing jobs in New England may go unfilled in the next decade. Of those, 5,500 are in Vermont.

And the study found that the biggest challenge will be training a workforce that possesses the requisite skills for advanced manufacturing.

“You can’t easily quote-unquote train for these jobs. You need to educate for these jobs,” says Patricia Moulton, Vermont’s Agency of Commerce and Community Development secretary. “These are not the kinds of things that generally that you can put through an eight-week training program and expect that they’re going to have the proficiency to advance throughout their career.”

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