🔒Connecticut pulls together to boost its manufacturing sector

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Connecticut is home to some of the world’s most successful and forward-thinking advanced manufacturing companies in the nation – from Farmington-based United Technologies (parent company to Pratt & Whitney, Otis, Carrier and Collins Aerospace) to New Britain’s Stanley Black & Decker and Pitney Bowes in Stamford.

These high-tech companies manufacture locally, employ thousands, and ship their products all over the world. But they only tell part of Connecticut’s manufacturing story. More than 4,500 companies are involved in advanced manufacturing, generating almost 11% of the state’s gross state product. Connecticut manufacturers land billions of dollars in defense contracts each year, and export some $15.5 billion on an annual basis, representing 94% of the state’s exports. And the impact doesn’t end there. The sector directly supports roughly 164,700 employees, with an average salary of $95,118 per year.

“It’s manufacturing activity that begets non-manufacturing activity, not the other way around,” explains Don Klepper-Smith, chief economist and director of research with DataCore Partners. “For every job created in manufacturing, another 1.5 jobs are created in non-manufacturing sectors.”

As Connecticut works to regain some of the jobs lost in the Great Recession, the state’s manufacturing base seems to be holding its own, adding 6,300 positions in 2017 and 1,700 more last year. Still, economic development and manufacturing groups across the state have been working to shake things up in the sector, tackling some of the challenges that they feel are keeping the industry from surging forward. And they’re already seeing some impressive results.

Finding qualified workers

One key problem is a long-standing shortage of qualified workers to fill gaps in the industry’s employment ranks. In 2015 – recognizing this as an issue that would only grow worse without a concerted effort to address it – the Eastern Connecticut Workforce Investment Board (EWIB) applied for and secured a competitive three-year, $6 million U.S. Department of Labor grant to identify unemployed and underemployed job candidates, and offer them free, specialized training for positions with manufacturers in the region. The terms of the grant called for the EWIB, led by president John Beauregard, to deliver 400 jobs.

Working in close collaboration with educational institutions as well as Groton-based Electric Boat and other manufacturing firms, the board identified the exact type of training needed and set out to offer it.

The results have exceeded all expectations. Since the Manufacturing Pipeline Initiative (MPI) got its start, more than 1,300 participants have been trained at local schools and colleges, and placed in jobs, most at Electric Boat. Another 190 manufacturers have also been hiring through the program. “That was the intent here – to make sure that not only large employers but smaller and medium employers had a place to turn to for the development of tomorrow’s manufacturing workforce,” said Beauregard.

Klepper-Smith said since the program began, eastern Connecticut has enjoyed sustained economic growth, “mainly due to the expansion in advanced manufacturing and the region’s unique ability to find the workforce talent for that sector. The MPI program has provided a clear and dramatic boost to the economy.”

In fact, two-thirds of Connecticut’s manufacturing employment gains since 2015 have come from that region, with job growth there up by 11.3%. Housing has seen an uptick as well.

Meanwhile, applicants continue to stream into the program, tempted by the prospect of landing a high-paying manufacturing position after just five weeks of training – and without a student loan. Because the training curriculum and standards are employer-driven, students have high odds of being hired once they graduate, even though almost 80% have had no previous manufacturing experience.

Thanks to roughly $10 million in funding from the state and private sources, the original time line for the program has been extended, and the MPI team is now working to get high school students involved through its youth pipeline spin-off, entirely supported by a grant from the Hartford-based Gawlicki Foundation.

The opportunities available through the program continue to grow. Over the next few years, Beauregard said, Electric Boat plans to spend more than $800 million on construction projects related to its development of the nation’s new Columbia class submarine. “So, obviously, there will be a great need for construction workers,” he explained.

“Our region is also lucky enough to start working in coordination not only with the City of New London but with the state of Connecticut on an offshore wind farm – we’ve had a conversation with Orsted [the developer] about how our model could benefit the project, and we’re working hand-in-hand with the union. We’re at the very early stages of piloting a very similar model in healthcare, which is starting to see some of the similar type of demand issues in terms of replacement workers.”

The EWIB hopes to see this successful model replicated elsewhere – and in fact, that’s already happening. The board shared its methods with its sister workforce development board in New Haven, “and they launched the first class with the same model that we developed here.”

The EWIB has also been in touch with the New England Board of Higher Education so the program can be implemented throughout New England. In April, federal Department of Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta came to Connecticut to see WPI in action first hand, after being invited by Senator Chris Murphy. Acosta called the pipeline “transformative,” adding that it could be used as a model across the country.

Klepper-Smith couldn’t agree more. “The work being done by the Eastern Connecticut Workforce Investment Board is some of the best cutting-edge work I’ve seen in terms of promoting manufacturing workforce development in all of my 38 years as an economic consultant,” he said. “It’s coordinated, it’s focused and it’s results-oriented. They basically created a template for what manufacturing can be. I give the EWIB a lot of credit.”