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Baby boomers, Gen Y and the issues USA face in regaining industrial high ground
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Contents
Introduction ................................................................................................................................................... 3
US manufacturing sector ............................................................................................................................... 3
Key issues regarding strategic developments ............................................................................................... 6
Gen Y and Baby Boomers: Opportunities and Challenges ........................................................................... 8
Conclusion .................................................................................................................................................. 13
References ................................................................................................................................................... 15
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Introduction
The USA has remained on the top position of the industrial high ground for a long time
with support and work of all the emerging new and innovative industries that work that keep on
designing new products and technologies all the time. There was an unprecedented growth in the
living standards as well as the level of prosperity among Americans after the end of World War
II (Shen et al, 2007).
But, since the last decade, the country has come down from its top position and
comparing the situation within the global industrial market, the position of the USA has been
declining when comparing the industrial capacities of some other markets that have made their
industrial developments quite competitive in today’s dynamic global economy (Shen et al, 2007).
The manufacturing sector of USA is facing strategic issues in regards to the skill
development, technological developments, mobility of skills, etc. 38% of the workforce in the
manufacturing sector of USA is comprised of baby boomers. The retiring generation of baby
boomers will lead to impending loss of experience due to which companies in the manufacturing
sector will have to put in place the combination of processes, technologies and training so as to
allow Gen Y to assume various job responsibilities (Bhagwati et al, 2004).
There are working similarities as well as differences between the baby boomer generation
and the generation Y, which can be used by companies in the manufacturing sector to address the
issues faced by them so as to regain the industrial high ground.
US manufacturing sector
The work in the manufacturing sector is process and skills oriented. The baby boomer
generation in the manufacturing sector in USA constitutes the largest part of the workforce. The
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demand for the manufactured product is constant, but the production has lagged behind by a
significant margin since the start of the year 2000. Owing to this reason, the translation of the
actual demand to the expanded employment output has not taken place. In addition to this, the
baby boomer generation that comprises of the largest part of the workforce is growing in age and
reaching the retirement age, thus leaving the workforce and creating the lag in the replacement
workers who are required to cover the replacement demand as well as the demand for new
workers.
The above picture shows the employment labor specifically in the manufacturing sector
of USA showing the continuing divergence between the increased average age and the decrease
in the growth of the population, thus making it difficult for the countries in the industry to find as
well as retain the workers who are well qualified for doing the job (Workforce Crisis in the
United States of America, 2012).
The baby boomer generation will be in the age bracket of 50-68 years old in the year
2014. In comparison to the average rate of growth of the overall workforce, the growth of the
people above 55 years of age is 4 times i.e. 4.1%, followed by 0.3% of 25-54 age group, and flat
growth of people who are below 25 years of age group. This reflects the critical issue of
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retirement of the experienced and reliable workforce in coming years with growing lag in the
younger workforce (Talent Pressures and the Aging Workforce, n.d.).
The generation Y people are not very much inclined towards doing job in the
manufacturing industry. The key role in shaping this attitude of Gen Y goes to the image of the
manufacturing industry as an assembly line industry that makes the companies in this sector
vulnerable to the profound impact of the retirement of the baby boomer workforce in the US
(Kwoh, 2012).
The image of the manufacturing industry is a major problem in shortening the lag
between the two generations of baby boomers and the generation Y. The manufacturing industry
is a skill oriented industry in which there is lot of importance of the acquisition of skills. These
skills and related training to new generation workers can be imparted through a well planned
process (Bhagwati et al, 2004).
The effects of outsourcing for many years have also left the manufacturing industry of
USA without the appropriate means of manufacturing the next generation of high tech products
which is necessary and key in rebuilding the down going economy of US. The manufacturing
capabilities along-with research and development, and engineering, help in sustaining the
innovation in a country. However, what was happening in the US economy was continuous
outsourcing of the manufacturing and the development work to specialists situated abroad so as
to cut their spending in conduction of the research (Bhagwati et al, 2004).
It has resulted in the losing knowledge, key skills of people and the infrastructure for the
supplier which is required to manufacture most of the cutting edge innovative products that were
invented.
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Key issues regarding strategic developments
In the period of 2005-2015, the most important concerns for the manufacturing industry
are availability of skilled and qualified workers, training, costs for healthcare costs and overall
compensation with the respective degree of percentage: 61.6, 5.5, 19.2 and 5.5. The concern is
the existence of the moderate to severe shortage of well qualified and skilled production
employees, which include front line workers such as operators, technicians, machinists,
distributors and craft workers (Deitz & Orr, 2006).
The issue in the USA is quite unique as the problem that companies in the USA
manufacturing sector face are not universal. Developing countries and countries with rich
educational heritage, such as India, Russia and China are graduating a...