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Employer Quotes
The quotes below are from employers in this industry: Engineering
They are talking about this topic: Workforce Trends & Challenges
The quotes below are about this issue:
Many employers face difficulty finding high-quality, entry-level applicants. This is especially true for mechanical and electrical engineering positions.
| "I would say that for us, we have run into issues in each of the areas. We've had a difficult time finding software engineers. We've had a difficult time finding electrical engineers. We've had a difficult time finding mechanical engineers. We've had a difficult time finding CNCE programmer people, and welders. We have had some jobs open in our area here for months—many months—that we have not been able to fill. When I see a suggestion of oversupply, I don't agree that there's an oversupply of anything. At least in our area anyway." | Central |
| "We have both electrical engineers and electrical technicians, mechanical engineers, and mechanical technicians that we're talking about needing here." | Central |
| "I fully agree with the other employer. You can find candidates, but they don't want to be in Nowhere, Minnesota. I think, bringing kids that have left and gotten educated, gathering them back to our area is the biggest problem." | Central |
| "We're finding similar results as the other employers. The difficulty of finding applicants often comes down to location." | Central |
| "We need maintenance technicians. I'm not sure when the oversupply—as suggested by the data—might be happening. Is that 10 years from now?" | Central |
| "We've decided in the industry that we have to be more involved. [Professor] from [MnSCU college] and I did a presentation for the Willmar school about three weeks ago letting them know these jobs are available and aren't being filled. There are Baby Boomers that have been in this industry—when we talk about the manufacturing side of things—that are retiring and there's no one replacing them. [MnSCU college] is graduating four machinists this year. This area needs 60 of them." | Central |
| "For us, for a mechanical technician or maintenance technician, if they've got some experience but no schooling, we would take a look at them. Or no experience and some schooling. We're not seeing a lot of two-year degrees. That's kind of what we want for those entry-level positions, but we just aren't seeing the applicants with those two-year degrees." | Central |
| "Software engineers and distributed control, that'd be the primary areas that we need, microcontroller, software developments." | Central |
| "Our workforce is gradually growing. I think right now we have five or six job openings out there on the sign as you drive by our company. And for some, we haven't gotten any applications. We've had this software engineer posting out there for a year now. For a year." | Central |
| "But it's specialized in microcontrollers. We get software engineers in, but they don't have the interest in the microcontroller side, they're more on the big system level. Someone that's interested in microcontrollers needs to understand the hardware with the software." | Central |
| "Employer 1: I would say our mid-shift is harder to fill than our first shift. It has a 3:00 p.m. start time, which—if you have a family—a lot of people don't want that. Employer 2: We run around the clock. We have three shifts. And it's definitely more difficult to fill the later shifts." |
Central |