Manufacturing lacks women workforce and different studies show that including women in the workforce increases productivity.
FREMONT, CA: The manufacturing industry might not be as progressive as others for women. Still, more and more companies are realizing the value of having a diverse mix of employees then actively recruiting and retaining the mix. Organizations are looking at women to fill the skill gap in the manufacturing industry. One of the reasons women and young girls do not know about careers in manufacturing because they do not see it as a career option. Elementary and middle schools can lay the groundwork needed to understand the opportunities.
Management in all the organizations in the manufacturing industries realizes the skill gap brought by older, skilled, and experienced workers retiring and the inability to find workers that replace them. According to Deloitte and the Manufacturing, Institute quotes Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2018, there were 508,000 open positions in U.S. manufacturing; however, due to the skill gap, many jobs were unfilled. The study also says that in 2018, 46.9 percent of the workforce was women, and 29.2 percent were employed in manufacturing. This indicates that women compete with men in numbers in manufacturing only in sales and office groups. In other workgroups, women made up between 5.5 percent and 28 percent of the workforce. This also indicates that there is a lot of room for expansion for women in the industry.
Other studies show that having a gender-balanced staff can improve the bottom line. According to a 2017 study by the Boston Consulting Group, innovation boosted when the number of women increased by 20 percent in the organization. Even though increasing diversity has its benefits, it is challenging to execute. Organizations must make sure that diversity practices align with their organizational goals. An approach that works for one company will not work for another. Companies that understand the value of diversity also understand the importance of ethnicity, disability, and other kinds of variety in the workforce. To reduce the bias towards job candidates, companies take actions such as blind resume review with name and identifying information removed from resumes. Thus, with the skills gap widening, a diverse workforce is essential.