Is President Obama’s announcement today of expanded efforts to boost U.S. manufacturing workforce skills the answer to the long-discussed skilled workers shortage?

That might be too much to ask for, but Mark Tomlinson, executive director and CEO of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers, says it’s a start.

“It’s the beginning of the answer,” says Tomlinson, who was at Northern Virginia Community College when the president announced a major expansion of Skills for America’s Future focused on the manufacturing sector. Skills for America’s Future is an initiative launched last year and designed to improve industry partnerships with community colleges to promote workforce development. 

In his comments today the president pointed out that many manufacturers have skilled positions going unfilled even as U.S. joblessness remains at a troubling level. He described it as “a mismatch we can close.”

The expanded initiatives are aimed at resolving that mismatch and helping workers gain skills that will “make America more competitive in the global economy,” according to Obama.

The primary initiative includes a partnership with The Manufacturing Institute, the non-profit affiliate of the National Association of Manufacturers, to provide 500,000 community college students with manufacturing industry-recognized credentials to help them get jobs. The Manufacturing Skills Certification System was developed with help from multiple organizations, including SME, the American Welding Society, ACT and others.

The SME’s Tomlinson said manufacturing workforce development has not received the exposure it deserves at the highest levels, an oversight today’s announcement helps to address.

“Talking is the start we’ve been looking for,” he says. “We are now actually talking about the importance of manufacturing as vital to a healthy economy.”

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