Selim Noujaim, president of Noujaim Tool Co. in Waterbury, says finding experienced toolmakers remains one of the company’s biggest challenges. HBJ File Photo
Even as high-profile plant closures put manufacturing workers on the market, Connecticut employers say the skills gap — worsened by Electric Boat’s massive hiring push — is leaving hundreds of jobs unfilled.
Selim Noujaim has five open positions for toolmakers at his Waterbury manufacturing plant, Noujaim Tool Co., which makes fixtures, tools and precision parts for the defense, medical and automotive industries.
“I would love to find qualified toolmakers and quite honestly, I’m offering a finder’s fee for someone who can help us recruit them, because we have work,” he said.
Not even the recent closure of Stanley Black & Decker’s last New Britain factory, with the loss of 300 jobs, could ease Noujaim’s workforce issues.
“They don’t have any qualified people,” he said, noting that he also reached out to Bristol-based medical technology manufacturer IDEX Health and Science when that company announced plans in May to close its facility and lay off 73 workers.
The experience highlights a growing challenge for Connecticut manufacturers. Even when experienced factory workers become available through layoffs, their skills often don’t match the increasingly specialized needs of companies serving the defense, aerospace and advanced manufacturing sectors.
As a result, manufacturers continue to struggle to fill openings despite high-profile plant closures.
Nationally, there were 474,000 manufacturing job openings at the end of April, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. As of December 2025, Connecticut had 58,000 job openings overall, according to the latest available BLS data.
Training timeline
Connecticut’s longstanding manufacturing labor shortage appears to be intensifying as major employers including jet-engine maker Pratt & Whitney, submarine builder Electric Boat and helicopter manufacturer Sikorsky ramp up hiring to support long-term government contracts.
Manufacturing employment in Connecticut has remained relatively stable, hovering in the mid-150,000 range over the past several years, according to state labor data. Even so, many employers report difficulty filling open positions.
A recent ranking by MIE Solutions highlights that challenge. The software company analyzed manufacturing job postings relative to the size of each state’s manufacturing workforce and ranked Connecticut 11th in the nation among states where employers face the greatest competition for talent.
“There’s a difference between a Connecticut problem and a problem for Connecticut,” said John Bordeaux, the CEO of AdvanceCT, the state’s nonprofit business recruitment arm. “We do things and make things in Connecticut that nobody else can do, and so it’s incumbent on us to ensure that we’re paying a lot of attention to this.”
Bordeaux said retraining displaced workers can help, but only to a point. Over the long term, Connecticut must continue attracting young people into manufacturing while investing in automation to help fill persistent labor shortages.
The push by Electric Boat to hire as many as 8,000 new workers this year is causing particular challenges in eastern Connecticut, where some supply chain companies say the state has focused much of its workforce development efforts on the shipyard itself.
“We have really struggled with finding people that are qualified to be plug-and-play in manufacturing,” said Chris Jewell, president of Bozrah-based Collins & Jewell Co., a metal fabricator and industrial contractor that supplies Electric Boat.
He currently has 90 employees and aims to grow 15% to 20% per year. Jewell said the company is judicious in who it hires: he interviews about 200 candidates per year, and brings on about 10 to 12 people.
Collins & Jewell has created a training and development department, developed its own curriculum and paired new hires with experienced employees, something that he notes is very expensive.
“It is costly to go through this process because essentially you’ve got two people doing one person’s job in the training process for about 18 months,” he said.
A roadside 'Help Wanted' sign outside R&D Dynamics in Bloomfield. HBJ Photo | Mike Puffer
The challenge is not unique to Connecticut. A recent report by McKinsey & Co. found that advanced manufacturers increasingly must invest significant time before new employees reach full productivity as production processes become more complex and specialized.
That makes retaining skilled workers especially important for companies like Collins & Jewell, which competes for talent with Electric Boat and other larger manufacturers that can often offer higher wages.
In Waterbury, Noujaim said worker poaching is a persistent problem, even among smaller manufacturers.
While Jewell has developed relationships with local high schools and Three Rivers Community College, he said some of his best hires are people who have spent several years in the workforce — even outside manufacturing.
“They really know what they want out of a career. Those are the ones that we tend to have more success with,” he said.
‘Aging out’
Brian Weinstein, president and CEO of Deep River-based Chapco Inc., knows firsthand how Electric Boat’s expansion is rippling through Connecticut’s manufacturing sector.
The 60-employee precision sheet metal fabricator invested $7.5 million this year to consolidate operations from three Chester facilities into a new 150,000-square-foot headquarters and manufacturing center in Deep River. The move was driven in part by growing demand from Electric Boat, which has become Chapco’s largest customer since the company joined the submarine builder’s supply chain in 2023.
Yet, even as the company positions itself for growth, Weinstein said finding experienced manufacturing workers remains a challenge.
“We’ve kind of resigned ourselves to the fact that new people are all going to need training,” he said. “It’s hard to find experienced people. A lot of them are aging out.”
Brian Weinstein, president and CEO of Chapco Inc., says most new manufacturing hires now require extensive on-the-job training. HBJ Photo | Mike PufferGiri Agrawal, president of Bloomfield-based R&D Dynamics, a manufacturer of bearings and turbomachinery, has more than 10 openings, some to replace retiring workers and others tied to expansion.
He said he can still hire engineers from overseas, but shop floor positions are much harder to fill. Like Noujaim, he reached out to companies announcing layoffs, including Stanley Black & Decker. He’s even placed colorful roadside “Help Wanted” signs in an effort to attract applicants.
“I can’t find a single guy,” he said.
Agrawal said workers coming from other manufacturing jobs may not have the exact skills his company needs, but they often require less training than recent graduates.
“It’s not the same kind of work that he was doing at Stanley, but he can learn faster than a guy from school,” he said.
Agrawal also said the state is not in regular communication with smaller manufacturers about workforce challenges, including recruiting and training workers, and he would like more help connecting with experienced employees displaced by layoffs at larger companies.
State labor officials say they hear from employers hoping to recruit workers affected by layoffs. The Department of Labor’s Business Engagement Unit works with employers on hiring efforts, while its Rapid Response team provides early assistance to displaced workers.
During the first five months of 2026, the Rapid Response team worked with 1,010 displaced workers across all industries. The department also assists eligible workers through the federal Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. In 2024, it served 675 dislocated workers, including 276 who received training.
Labor officials said 79% of participants were employed one year after leaving the program.
“There’s a difference between a Connecticut problem and a problem for Connecticut,” said John Bordeaux, the CEO of AdvanceCT, the state’s nonprofit business recruitment arm. “We do things and make things in Connecticut that nobody else can do, and so it’s incumbent on us to ensure that we’re paying a lot of attention to this.”
Bordeaux said retraining displaced workers can help, but only to a point. Over the long term, Connecticut must continue attracting young people into manufacturing while investing in automation to help fill persistent labor shortages.
The push by Electric Boat to hire as many as 8,000 new workers this year is causing particular challenges in eastern Connecticut, where some supply chain companies say the state has focused much of its workforce development efforts on the shipyard itself.
“We have really struggled with finding people that are qualified to be plug-and-play in manufacturing,” said Chris Jewell, president of Bozrah-based Collins & Jewell Co., a metal fabricator and industrial contractor that supplies Electric Boat.
He currently has 90 employees and aims to grow 15% to 20% per year. Jewell said the company is judicious in who it hires: he interviews about 200 candidates per year, and brings on about 10 to 12 people.
Collins & Jewell has created a training and development department, developed its own curriculum and paired new hires with experienced employees, something that he notes is very expensive.
“It is costly to go through this process because essentially you’ve got two people doing one person’s job in the training process for about 18 months,” he said.
