‘We needed you yesterday’

Published 9:00 pm Sunday, November 14, 2004

An increase in aerospace industry hiring has created a local shortage of workers with certain skills, recruiters say.

Locally and nationally, signs point to a recovery in the industry, which has added more than 18,000 workers nationwide in the past six months.

Boeing, Airbus and defense contractors all are increasing production, and “you’ve got to have workers to do that,” said David Napier, research director for the Aerospace Industries Association.

However, while companies are adding workers after years of layoffs, so far it’s been a slow rebound, analysts warn.

“We’re not seeing big, big hiring here, but it’s headed up,” said Donna Thompson, a state labor economist in Everett.

Locally, there’s a shortage of people trained to operate what are known as computer numerically controlled machines, recruiters said.

“If you’re a machinist, we needed you yesterday,” read a help-wanted ad posted online by a recruiting company recently.

CNC machinists operate the large machines that cut raw metal into usable parts. It’s a skilled job required by many of the companies that manufacture parts for the Boeing Co.

Those companies are seeing more orders from Boeing, said Melina Elder, a recruiter with Aerotek, a Bellevue company that recruits workers for small aerospace companies. So they’re hiring.

Elder said her company’s clients have anywhere from six to 15 job openings each week, and it’s getting harder and harder to find qualified workers with up-to-date machine operating experience.

“We’ve already seen a shortage,” she said. “This time last year, there were a lot of machinists unemployed.”

Many aerospace machinists left the trade after getting laid off, she said.

It’s also likely that some of them left the area to find work, Thompson said. Texas aerospace giant Lockheed Martin has held two hiring fairs here in recent years, looking for trained aerospace workers to help it build the Joint Strike Fighter.

The worker shortage doesn’t extend across all aerospace-related trades, said Jan Scudder, a recruiter with WorkSource in Everett. “We’ve still got a full lobby,” she said.

But the pool of unemployed CNC machinists has dried up, Scudder said.

“Last year, couldn’t put a one to work,” she said. “This year, can’t find them.”

The rebound in local hiring reflects what’s happening nationally.

Employment in the U.S. aerospace industry hit a 50-year low of 568,700 in February, according to the Aerospace Industry Association. Since then, companies have added 18,900 people, Napier said.

The hiring comes even as U.S. airlines report continuing losses and several may be pushed into bankruptcy.

That might seem illogical, Napier said. But while U.S. airlines – and those who serve the United States from overseas – were hit hard by the 2001 terror attacks, airlines in the rest of the world recovered faster.

Even in the United States, jets are full, Napier said. It’s just that passengers are willing to pay only bargain-basement fares, so only the low-cost carriers are making money, he said.

More people flying means both Boeing and Airbus had better years than predicted, he said. U.S. defense contractors also have had a strong year.

The trends should continue in 2005-06, he said.

“Both of these markets are going to be growing,” Napier said. It will lead to a “boom time, and that’s just around the corner.”

The 18,900 jobs added nationwide don’t offset the 30,000 people slashed by Boeing alone after the 2001 terror attacks.

However, Boeing has been hiring, adding 1,900 workers around Puget Sound since July, a company spokesman said.

That total includes more than 800 machinists recalled to work, and more than 900 engineers and technical workers, Boeing’s Chaz Bickers said.

Boeing will continue “measured” hiring in the months to come, to support development of the 7E7, and modified 737s for the U.S. Navy, he said.

The company posted new ads last week for about 50 Everett jobs, including systems engineers, flight controls analysts and project managers, all to work on the 7E7. There are also openings for about two dozen summer interns.

Boeing plans to increase commercial jet production in 2005 by about 35 planes. But executives have talked about smoothing out the boom-and-bust hiring cycles at Boeing, and it’s not likely that the company’s work force – which topped 54,700 this month – will ever return to the peaks of the past, when more than 100,000 Puget Sound-area people worked for the company.

Boeing’s not the only aerospace company hiring right now, Thompson said. The increase in passenger traffic has prompted airlines to bring back from the desert many of the planes that were grounded after 2001, she said.

All those planes need maintenance, and many airlines are refurbishing passenger cabins while they’re at it. That has created work for jet maintenance giant Goodrich, and for Snohomish County companies that specialize in aircraft interiors.

Yet, the growth so far has been modest, Thompson said. The most recent reports show aerospace companies here added about 300 workers in September, pushing the total to 21,700.

“We’ve turned the corner,” Thompson said. “But it’s going to be a slow process to come back.”

Reporter Bryan Corliss: 425-339-3454 or corliss@heraldnet.com.