Northwest Aerospace News October | November Issue No. 5 | Page 53

CENTER OF EXCELLENCE SPOTLIGHT
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n a positive side, there are skills surpluses, but they tend to exist in the Midwestern and Eastern United States. Cities
like Cleveland, Atlanta, and Minneapolis are experiencing a surplus in people with qualified skills for jobs. Seattle does
have a surplus of over 800 aerospace engineers based upon the report. But, like most places, there is a deficiency in data
scientists, “the practice of obtaining, exploring, modeling, and interpreting data,” expertise which is critical to improve-
ment in production systems in manufacturing — and plays a big part in whether to invest in more people, or more automa-
tion in the factory.
Migration to other cities for jobs was also measured in the LinkedIn report. Seattle gained 80.4 new workers per 10,000,
making it the city with the fourth-largest gain.
What is that doing to other Washington cities? Spokane has seen a huge gain in 2018, according to a recent Associated
Press story about people migrating from Seattle’s King County to Spokane County. The article entitled, “Growing Spokane,
Washington, Sheds Its Sleepy City Image,” by Nicholas K. Geranios (August 12, 2018), states, “The Seattle Times reported
that in recent years more than 2,000 people per year move from King County to Spokane County.”
The increase in people moving out of Seattle into Spokane, and surrounding Kootenai County in Northern Idaho, could be
due to the new Amazon fulfillment center moving to Spokane in 2019; but, it may also be due to the roughly 500 smaller
manufacturing companies in the region.
Many of these companies feed the aerospace pipeline for Boeing, Bombardier and Airbus, making everything from lavato-
ries to overhead bins and floor strips.
But the remaining problem is why such a high skills gap? Are jobs evolving so quickly that training is lagging? Or is there
a lag in people identifying the need for more technical training in their careers, that keeps them from going back to school?
In this economy, there is plenty of opportunity whether you live in Seattle, Spokane, Portland or Coeur d’Alene. The
question is whether people are paying attention to improving their careers by seeking short-term certificates or career and
technical training, to be ready to respond to the opportunities coming their way.
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