Manufacturing employers often cite challenges to finding and hiring enough highly skilled and diverse workers, so it is important to understand how pathways into manufacturing and the retention of manufacturing workers may be improved. The authors of this report examine the pipeline between Ohio’s postsecondary education system and the manufacturing workforce, focusing on ways to bolster the supply of workers and the diversity of the workforce.

Strengthening the Manufacturing Workforce in Ohio

Lisa Abraham, Christine Mulhern, Lucas Greer

ResearchPublished Sep 14, 2023

Manufacturing employers often cite challenges to finding and hiring a sufficient number of highly skilled and diverse workers, so it is important to understand how pathways into manufacturing and the retention of manufacturing workers may be improved. The authors of this report address this research gap by examining the pipeline between Ohio's postsecondary education system and the manufacturing workforce. They focus on understanding potential ways to expand the supply of workers and the diversity of the manufacturing workforce. Although Ohio represents a subset of the U.S. manufacturing industry, it has a significant share of manufacturing employment and production. Therefore, it can be instructive for more broadly understanding the challenges and opportunities that workers, employers, and educational institutions in manufacturing face.

Key Findings

  • The majority of Ohio students with manufacturing-related credentials are not employed in Ohio manufacturing after completing their credentials.
  • Attrition from education to employment is even larger among female and non-white students, as might be expected in an industry that disproportionately employs male and white workers.
  • These results suggest that there is a much larger supply of highly skilled workers with manufacturing-related expertise than is currently being utilized by the manufacturing industry.
  • Identifying ways to reduce attrition from manufacturing education to the manufacturing workforce will be important for growing the pipeline of highly skilled workers and expanding the diversity of the workforce.
  • In general, wages in the manufacturing industry do not seem to be a driving factor of the education-to-employment attrition: Manufacturing wages in Ohio tend to be high relative to those of other Ohio industries.
  • The female share of workers in manufacturing is much lower than in the state as a whole. In addition, non-white and female students are underrepresented in manufacturing-related programs, and workers from underrepresented minority backgrounds have lower wages than their peers once they join the full-time manufacturing workforce.
  • Roughly 10 percent of workers leave employment in manufacturing for employment in another industry in Ohio. More research is needed to understand why they are leaving.
  • Among recent entrants, manufacturing workers primarily enter the manufacturing workforce from other industries, as opposed to directly from education.

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Abraham, Lisa, Christine Mulhern, and Lucas Greer, Strengthening the Manufacturing Workforce in Ohio. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2023. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA2517-1.html.
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