By Brenda Showalter, The Republic
bshowalter@therepublic.com
The biggest challenge facing manufacturers in south central Indiana is having enough skilled workers to fill job openings, said members of the Indiana Economic Development Corp. board of directors.
Recent announcements of major business expansions are good for the state, but they require state officials to concentrate more efforts on recruiting and training workers.
Cummins Inc. has announced it will hire 700 workers for the production of a new light-duty diesel engine in Columbus, and Honda Motor Corp. said it will hire 2,000 for its Greensburg plant.
While 10 percent of the U.S. workforce is employed in manufacturing, the figure is 20 percent in Indiana and 25 percent in south central Indiana, said Teresa Voors, commissioner for Indiana Department of Workforce Development.
Voors spoke Thursday at Cummins Plant 1 before the Indiana EDC board, where it conducted its quarterly meeting.
She said the state is working to improve its efforts to connect workers with manufacturing jobs and offer worker training grants to businesses.
Gov. Mitch Daniels, who also met with the EDC board, was at PMG Indiana Corp. in Columbus Thursday where the company celebrated an $11.4 million expansion. EDC offered PMG up to $1.2 million in performance-based tax credits and up to $50,000 in worker training grants. Daniels said business growth and expansions in Indiana have created some concerns about the competition for workers and higher wages.
"Upward pressure on wages is the kind of problem we like to have," Daniels said. Voors said the average annual wages for new manufacturing jobs planned for Indiana is $36,564. Honda announced in September that its pay scale for production workers would start at $14.84 and increase to $18.55 over two years. Voors said state workforce development officials helped create the online application for Honda workers and are working with Honda to screen applicants.
Cummins expansion
Cummins also plans to hire a large number of workers as part of its $250 million investment in Plant 1, which lost about 200 workers in late 2002 when heavy-duty engine assembly was transferred to Jamestown, N.Y.
Cummins Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Tim Solso said the company is committed to Columbus and could have further expansions.
"As we look forward, we think we will be a $20 billion company in the 2011 time frame," Solso told EDC.
"We're going to go from 40,000 employees to probably 55,000 employees, and probably a big chunk of those that are going to be hired will be in Indiana."
He said numbers announced for the light duty engine effort could increase. Solso said he would rather "underpromise and over-deliver."
However, with success come challenges.
"People ask me now that we've had some financial success what do I worry about," Solso said.
"The biggest challenge we have is on the people side: finding the people, getting them hired, making sure they have really good jobs that they can grow and develop and that they share the values of the corporation.
"We need to do that on a global basis, but again, this is our headquarters, and again I will say to the community this will always be our headquarters."
Solso added that local efforts, including the Columbus Learning Center have helped the city and Cummins.
Local initiatives
Daniels and Voors praised the Learning Center as an example of how the community, businesses and educational organizations can work together.
The center's efforts include working with local businesses to tailor training programs to meet their needs.
The center also works with local colleges that are increasing the number of credits students can transfer as they work toward degrees.
Voors added that Workforce Development has its local office in the center and that it is one of the best in the state.
Daniels said the Learning Center "is the best model in the state."
The governor asked Voors if the model could be replicated and said he would talk to Indiana's college and university leaders to promote a similar effort in other communities.
Having businesses and colleges work together offers great opportunities for businesses and workers, Voors said.
Larry Van Epps, executive vice president for PMG Indiana in Columbus, said the business has a great relationship with Ivy Tech Community College to develop programs to help train its workers.
New PMG workers will receive on-site training and take classes through Ivy Tech, Van Epps said.
The Dream It, Do It campaign also is aimed at creating a larger pool of skilled laborers for manufacturing jobs.
The effort's goals include to aligning education, work force and economic growth strategies to provide workers for businesses and career opportunities for young adults.
During a May program at Columbus Learning Center, Daniels said Indiana manufacturers are the state's largest contributor to economic growth.
Dream It, Do It is an effort of Indiana's Region 9 Workforce Development Board and involves 10 counties, including Bartholomew.
Fifteen of the top 25 employers in Region 9 are manufacturing companies.