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Material Handling Headed for a Workforce Crisis

Not a single one of America’s top players in material handling and logistics wanted their sons and daughters to be working in a distribution center as adults. That was the shocking result of a show-of-hands poll Benoit Montreuil, president of the College Industry Council on Material Handling Education, took during a speech at last summer’s Material Handling and Logistics Summit. The straw poll of industry leaders caused Montreuil to take a hard look at the future of material handling and the workforce issues that will help define that future.

Montreuil believes America’s growing workforce crisis, which he said is not industry specific, is rooted in three issues:

  1. As Baby Boomers retire, there are fewer workers to replace them. America’s workforce is shrinking.
  2. America’s next generation of workers prefers white collar jobs to jobs in factories and distribution centers. To cut costs, many businesses are outsourcing labor jobs to foreign countries. Immigrant laborers comprise the largest segment of factory and distribution workers, a trend that is growing.
  3. Material handling and logistics jobs are perceived to be dull, entry-level jobs requiring little skill and garnering bottom-rung pay.

The obvious short-term solutions are to import more foreign workers eager to work in America under current conditions and for present pay levels, undertake a major marketing initiative to change the negative image of material handling and attract a new workforce, and computerize and automate our operations to minimize manpower needs. However, Montreuil warned that long-term solutions will require a change in the material handling industry’s paradigm.

Next time: The future of the material handling industry.

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