Hard at work.

• Author: Wood, Suzanne
• Position: SPONSORED SECTION: MANUFACTURING

North Carolina manufacturers are growing, and they need skilled workers. Education, economic-development and community leaders are implementing programs to ensure that they have them.

Parents want their children to succeed, and most have become conditioned to believe that can only be accomplished with at least a four-year degree from a college or university. More than 44% of the about 97,000 students who graduated from North Carolina public high schools in 2014, the last year for which figures are available, planned to enroll in a four-year program, according to N.C. Department of Public Instruction. That's increasing demand at North Carolina's public universities, which have become more selective with admissions. UNC Chapel Hills admissions rate was 26% in 2016, for example, while N.C. State University's was 43%, according to their websites.

But there's an alternate route to success, and it doesn't require a four-year degree.

"There are great opportunities in manufacturing," says Lisa Chapman, N.C. Community College System's chief academic officer and senior vice president for programs and student services. "They include positions that support family-sustaining wages, good benefits and cleaner work environments than those of some manufacturing companies in the past. We need to more effectively communicate these expectations to K through 12 students and their parents so that they not only know more about these opportunities but also how to academically prepare for them."

Manufacturing is important to North Carolina. Its total economic output was $100.1 billion in 2015, according to Washington, D.C.-based trade group National Association of Manufacturers, up from $98.3 billion in 2013. The sector's workforce is the Souths largest, about 460,000 as of March, according to the N.C. Department of Commerce. But the growth means manufacturers need more workers. A study by New York-based Deloitte LLP and Washington, D.C.-based Manufacturing Institute--the research arm of National Association of Manufacturers--predicts that about 2 million U.S. manufacturing jobs will be vacant by 2025. Those openings will be caused by baby boomers retiring and the search for more tech-savvy employees. Concerned about the looming labor shortage, manufacturers are taking steps to fill the talent pool. They are working with state agencies, schools and colleges to grow the workforce through recruitment and retraining. But it won't be easy.

While the reality of manufacturing is positive, negative perceptions are widespread. When the Deloitte and Manufacturing Institute study asked millennials to rank seven domestic industries, they put a career in manufacturing last. They aren't alone. Many people--including parents of high-school students--see factories as dark, dirty, noisy places where jobs offer little advancement and paltry paychecks. But in 2013, the last year for which such figures are available, the average annual salary for manufacturing workers in North Carolina was $66,427...