Hartford Business Journal

12 HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | NOVEMBER 1, 2021 By Sean Teehan steehan@hartfordbusiness.com M achines whirred and clanked on a recent afternoon at Carey Manufacturing Co., as about a dozen employees worked at stations making latches, handles and other products the Cromwell company produces for the military and aerospace sectors and computer devices. A few years ago Carey was in a difficult position echoed across the rest of Connecticut's manufacturing industry: a significant number of its most experienced employees were nearing retirement, with no obvious candidates to replace them. But today, the company is fully staffed with 52 workers — about 75% on the manufacturing floor — CEO Paul Lavoie said. "Anyone who's interested in a career in the trades, we're happy to sit down with them," Lavoie said. "We have a lot of young people here." Myriad industries in Connecticut are facing a pandemic-induced workforce shortage, but the dynamic of experienced workers reaching retirement age without a similar number of younger people entering the industry to replace them plagued manufacturing long before COVID-19 deposited a live grenade in the U.S. labor market. According to a 2020 Connecticut Business & Industry Association survey, 20% of Connecticut manufacturing executives said availability of skilled workers was the main factor hampering their ability to grow, while 48% said they were having a hard time finding and retaining young workers. There are currently about 6,000 unfilled manufacturing jobs in the state, according to the Department of Labor, and it's estimated that 11% of the current industry workforce will retire between 2021 and 2024. Despite the industry's headwinds, Carey Manufacturing has been able to maintain a full staff through: community engagement to find new employees, a willingness to provide training, and by offering workers more flexibility, Lavoie said. Community involvement Forty-year-old Carey Manufacturing is a midsize company that generates about $7 million in annual revenue, according to Lavoie. In 2006 it acquired Amatom Electronic Hardware, which makes hardware that goes into electronic devices. In the early 2000s Carey started outsourcing some of its manufacturing to China, while continuing to make Amatom hardware in Cromwell. Full House Here's how one CT manufacturer has successfully tackled the industry's workforce shortage In 2017 the company began reshoring manufacturing back to Connecticut, said Lavoie, who joined Carey as CEO about five years ago. Right now they're about 80% complete with that process, he said. A few years before Lavoie came aboard, Carey Manufacturing was using job boards to replace its most experienced staffers who were retiring, but the strategy wasn't panning out. Sometimes the company would hire six new workers and only two lasted the first month, he said. "We're too small to continue that [hiring] model," Lavoie said. "So we needed to find a different model." Instead, the company turned to a strategy pioneered by Human Resources Director Pete Egan that relies heavily on getting out of the factory, forming relationships with educators and doing anything else possible to encourage young people to consider manufacturing as 23% State regulatory/mandate compliance costs 20% Availability of skilled workers 16% State's high cost of living 15% Uncertainty/unpredictability of legislative decision-making 13% High business taxes 9% Other 2% Transportation infrastructure 1% Credit availability Workforce shortages are stunting manufacturing industry growth A 2020 Connecticut Business & Industry Association survey asked manufacturing executives what's their biggest impediment to growth, besides the pandemic. Here's how they responded: Source: CBIA July 2020 Connecticut manufacturing survey HBJ PHOTO | STEVE LASCHEVER Carey Manufacturing Inc. CEO Paul Lavoie says community engagement is key to the company's ability to keep itself fully staffed.

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