Surprisingly, we found employees want the basics first: better air quality, access to natural light, and the ability to personalize their workspace. Half of the employees we surveyed said poor air quality makes them sleepier during the day, and more than a third reported up to an hour in lost productivity as a result. In fact, air quality and light were the biggest influencers of employee performance, happiness, and wellbeing, while fitness facilities and technology-based health tools were the most trivial.
NAM – August 2019
Worries about a global economic slowdown-which has been exacerbated by renewed trade uncertainties-has caused financial markets to fall dramatically. On a more encouraging front, job openings in the manufacturing sector were unchanged at 503,000 in June, continuing to be an all-time high. Over the past 12 months, job openings have averaged nearly 483,000 per month—a highly elevated pace. With that said, the pace of hiring and separations slowed in June, mirroring other economic activity and employment data.
American Machinist – August 2019
Reshoring
and foreign direct investment in the U.S. increased 38% during 2018, the
highest level in history according to the Reshoring Initiative, the agency
formed to advance the effects of “reshoring.” The term describes the
phenomenon of manufacturers relocating manufacturing activity and services, or
sourcing, to the U.S. from overseas. For
2018, the combination of reshoring and FDI represented 145,000 jobs, the second
highest annual rate of job increases on record. The total job increases
credited to reshoring, including upward revisions of 36,000 jobs in prior
years, is over 757,000 since the 2010 low-point for domestic manufacturing
employment.
Industry Week – August 2019
As Baby Boomers are beginning to retire, jobs are opening up, thus the Silver Tsunami. According to the latest government data, there are now 522,000 open manufacturing jobs in the United States (an all-time high), and a recent report from Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute (the National Association of Manufacturer’s social-impact arm) projects that 2.4 million manufacturing jobs will go unfilled over the next decade.