NEWS & EVENTS

Advanced manufacturing job growth continues in Indiana

Advanced manufacturing employment continues to prosper in Indiana.

A new report from Detroit-based LIFT—Lightweight Innovations for Tomorrow, a national advanced manufacturing innovation institute, showed advanced manufacturing employment in Indiana reached new heights in 2018 with more than 550,000 workers employed in lightweighting-related occupations – up slightly from 2017 and hitting its highest employment level since 2001.

Along with rising employment levels in 2018, employer demand for workers in lightweighting-related occupations grew by about 5 percent from the fourth quarter of 2017 through the fourth quarter of 2018, with more than 39,000 jobs posted in the year’s final quarter, according to the report.

The report, highlighting employment trends, top jobs, and required skills in advanced manufacturing through 2018, was completed with research and analysis from the Workforce Intelligence Network of Southeast Michigan and covers Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee, a region that’s home to more than 50 percent of the metalworking jobs in the country.

“It is tremendously positive to see the trend in employment growth in Indiana for the ninth consecutive year,” said Emily DeRocco, education and workforce vice president, LIFT. “As demand for advanced manufacturing jobs continues to climb, it remains incumbent upon industry and educators to partner together to ensure the pipeline of people with the talent, skills and abilities to work in advanced manufacturing is robust to support the needs of the manufacturing base going forward.”

The top in-demand lightweighting-related occupations in Indiana in 2018 included:

  • Maintenance and repair workers (12,007 postings)
  • First-line supervisors of production and operating workers (9,983 postings)
  • Industrial engineers (8,750 postings)
  • First-line supervisors of transportation and material moving workers, except aircraft cargo handling supervisors (7,468 postings)
  • Laborers and freight, stock and material movers (6,253 postings).