More Progress Needed to Open Manufacturing Jobs

to WomenAirmatic Inc

Introduction Based in Malvern, PA, Airmatic Inc. supplies a wide range of industrial

equipment, including powder-handling and bulk materials-sorting products, to its clients. The company’s history dates back to 1944, and today it serves customers involved in manufacturing, construction, energy, and allied fields all over the world. Airmatic Inc. is also proud of its status as a female-owned company. 

Although today women represent close to one-half of the overall labor force, they comprise only slightly more than one-fourth of employees in the manufacturing sector, recent studies have found. This underrepresentation of women in manufacturing holds true across the sector’s multiple sub-categories. 

In a 2015 study sponsored by the Manufacturing Institute, researchers concluded that many women decide not to pursue careers in manufacturing due to the perception that the industry favors men in hiring and promotion.

Manufacturing Women may believe that front-line managerial positions will not

be available to them, thus impeding their rise into executive ranks. Additionally, popular culture depicts manufacturing work as attracting only unskilled workers who labor in physically strenuous and dirty environments.

But today’s manufacturing industry goes beyond stereotypes. Women can and do earn executive jobs, and the work increasingly calls for technological and decision-making skills.

Experts say that, in the near future, manufacturing stands to experience an employee shortfall of some 2 million, largely due to the lack of potential new hires with the right skills. Encouraging women to consider manufacturing jobs can go a long way toward developing a larger, better-prepared workforce.