Word: tools
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Michigan's industrial development division: "A recovering economy and a boom in defense orders could create the biggest industrial-demand crunch we've seen since 1941." Though the skills squeeze is hitting just about every sector of industry, the most worrisome shortages are looming in the machine-tool trades. Nearly all big manufacturing firms employ skilled people who work with metal. But, more and more, large firms have come to rely on specialty firms as subcontractors for their metalworking needs...
...process, the nation's 3,500 machine-tool companies have become the tiny base upon which all of American industry now sits like an inverted pyramid. The firms range from garage-size shops with one or two workers to giant manufacturing companies with employees numbering in the thousands. Large or small, the businesses all have one thing in common: they make the tools, drills, lathes, presses and other industrial machines without which no manufacturer can operate...
Long the world leader in machine-tool production, the U.S. has seen its share of the world market shrink from 21% in 1964 to a mere 7% now. More and more companies have begun turning to imported machine tools, especially from West Germany and Japan. Imports now serve fully 25% of the domestic market. "This type of situation is not just a problem," says Seymour Melman, professor of industrial engineering at Columbia University. "It is an unmitigated disaster...
...cruise missile, and is the world's leading producer of industrial robots. In the past eight months, a lack of skilled labor has ballooned Condec's order backlog by 37% to $288 million. Says Condec Chairman Norman I. Schafler: "It has become virtually impossible to get any tool-and diemakers. Industry has consumed its pool of skills like a diminishing oil well...
...shortage of skilled workers has gradually been building. Even the least academically inclined high school graduates now set their sights on college rather than on a technical education. Says Karl Sjogren, 60, a Finnish immigrant who owns a one-man tool-and-die shop in Redford Township, Mich.: "My son is not interested in this at all. He is an auditor for a big company...