Private Sector American Jobs - PBS interview with Drew Greenblatt

Friday, September 2, 2011


PBS
9-2-2011 Drew Greenblatt


Transcript


Darren Gersh: >> There are employers out there who say they are having trouble finding good people to hire, even in this economy. Employers like Drew Greenblatt of Marlin Steel Wire.
How can you have high unemployment, and you've got good jobs going unfilled?

DREW GREENBLATT, President of Marlin Steel >> We have a mismatch. We have people out there that are skilled and trained, let's say, to work in a retail showroom or to work in a McDonalds or in a restaurant. They're not necessarily trained to be able to know what a radius is or to know how to read a tape measure or to know how to read a blueprint or know how to change a bearing or a die set in a robot.

Darren Gersh: >> You can see Marlin Steel Wire's challenge right here. 51 minutes. That's how much longer this machine will run before it shuts down. Now the operator who setup this machine has already gone home for the night. His shift is over. If they could find somebody else to come in and setup this machine, it could run all night long.
Greenblatt says he is even having some trouble finding a bookkeeper. After getting more than 250 resumes, he found just four candidates who know manufacturing and job costing. One toured the floor while we visited, and yes, Greenblatt is offering more money; 20% more to find the right person.

DREW GREENBLATT, President of Marlin Steel >> We thought it was going to be really easy to fill this position, but we're actually surprised at how challenging it's been for us.

Darren Gersh: >> Experts in manufacturing like Jerry Jasinowski aren't surprised. He estimates that one fifth of the nation's unemployment problem is structural, meaning there is a mismatch between what people can do and what the economy needs them to do.

Jerry Jasinowski >> All of this talk about short-term stimulus, even with the good ideas that are sometimes laid out, misses the point there is not a short-term fix to this high unemployment problem. We're in a new, slower-growth economy with higher unemployment and we're going to have to invest a lot more in skill training.

Darren Gersh: >> But Greenblatt's strategy is to keep costs low, move fast and to deliver high quality. That's how he beats China. To do that, he says, he needs workers right now.
So, why don't you just train them? Isn't that the solution?

DREW GREENBLATT, President of Marlin Steel >> That's a good strategy, the problem is that we're lean. When you're lean, you don't have a lot of extra people around who have free time to train.

Darren Gersh: >> Other employers we spoke with say some jobs are hard to fill but for different reasons. Some skilled workers are afraid to take a chance on a new employer. Some are under-water on their house and can't move for a new job. And, there are employers who admit, in a tough economy, they get a lot more picky about who they will hire; maybe too picky; which is why Obama economic advisor, Christina Romer says there's no evidence of a massive skills mismatch.

Christina Romer: >> This is not the new normal, it's the old cyclical that we are still in the middle of a recession, we still have not enough demand for a normal level of output and that's the fundamental reason why unemployment's this high.

Darren Gersh: >> But don't tell that to Drew Greenblatt. He just spent $700,000 on new equipment. There's just one thing missing.

DREW GREENBLATT, President of Marlin Steel >> We're standing adjacent to five robots that are not running right now. They're not running right now because I don't have enough smart people like them to set them up right now.

Darren Gersh: >> Darren Gersh, Nightly Business Report, Baltimore.