Rising to the Challenge of the Workforce Imperative

Among the issues facing the manufacturing community today, challenges in workforce development continue to be a top concern and priority. Over the past year, national conversations around the importance of sustaining a viable and strong workforce now and into the future not only grew in their frequency, but also their gravity. Topics taking center stage were a predicted labor shortage for more than 2.7 million unfilled manufacturing jobs in the next 10 years, a skills gap unable to meet the adoption of new technologies and the necessity of retaining a younger, more diversified talent pool that infuses differing perspectives.

Central to its mission, SME highly values and understands the compelling impact a highly skilled and diverse workforce has on local and national competitiveness, economic prosperity and national security.

In 2022, SME continued to evolve a collaborative and innovative strategic plan to embrace this workforce imperative, working with education, government and industry on the most critical challenges and needs.

In 2022, SME appointed its first Chief Workforce Development Officer.

The appointment of Jeannine Kunz, a multidecade SME executive and the leader of the Tooling U-SME acquisition in 2010, recommitted SME’s efforts to expand and revitalize its mission to build manufacturing’s current and future talent and capabilities.

Kunz also received an appointment to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Committee on Options for a National Smart Manufacturing Plan, through which she will help develop the national plan for competitiveness in the U.S. manufacturing sector, including a focus on workforce.