Local manufacturers talk jobs with students
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JACKSON, Tenn. — Local manufacturers said they have jobs available but not enough skilled workers to fill them. Employees with Stanley Black & Decker talked job opportunities Wednesday with students at the Jackson Fairgrounds. “There’s a lot of jobs available,” Stanley Black & Decker Plant Manager Don Tucker said. “We just need the right skills and the right available people.” Sixteen different manufacturing companies and four local colleges met with hundreds of students from 11 different schools. The goal is to dispel myths about the manufacturing industry. “Manufacturing has some of the best paying jobs in the world,” Jackson State Community College Director of Workforce Development Jack Laser said. Students learned what skills it takes to get a manufacturing job. Austin Vandezande, a junior at Liberty Technology Magnet High School, said he is interested in engineering. “There’s a lot of different areas you can go into, and school’s very important for it,” he said. Tucker said over the next decade, 3 million manufacturing jobs will be available in the United States. “About 2 million of those jobs will go unfilled because of the shortage of labor,” he said. Experts said these jobs require some type of post secondary education. The University of Memphis Lambuth, Union University, Tennessee College of Applied Technology and Jackson State Community College all attended Wednesday‘s expo.
