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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024
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THE TRADES DEFICIT

Six students huddled around a set of small boxes in a dark MiraCosta College classroom. Each of the boxes projected a rainbow of light, part of an optics lab to train potential engineers. Eventually, the students will tinker with the pair of bright red robots in opposite corners of the room that are “smart” enough to know when they’ve bumped into another object.

The students are part of an engineering pilot program at MiraCosta’s Technology Career Institute in Carlsbad, which opened last April. MiraCosta also has doubled the size of its machinist program, to 18 students per class.

Both classes are designed with North County manufacturers in mind, said Linda Kurokawa, MiraCosta’s director of community education and workforce development. The U.S. Department of Labor gave the school a $2.75 million grant to respond to industry’s need for more machinists and engineering technicians, and Carlsbad is renting out the former municipal building at a significant discount.

Companies struggling to find qualified applicants frequently ask Kurokawa to offer classes in subjects such as welding, quality assurance or even aquaculture. But because her program is fee-based, she said any class must be financially viable for the school before she can offer to help the manufacturing industry.

Industry’s Assistance Needed

“I may need donation of equipment; I need to know the industry will hire our students, or even sponsor some students,” Kurokawa said. “If industry wants an expensive program launched to fill their need, where does a college get the seed money to do that?”

She plans to raise those questions on May 27 at a roundtable organized by Innovate 78, an initiative backed by cities along state Route 78 aimed at spurring job growth and retaining companies in North County. The roundtable will allow local manufacturers to increase awareness of what jobs are in high demand, said Matt Sanford, economic development manager for the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corp.

Sanford said that in his talks with manufacturers along the 78 Corridor, there is pent-up need for not just the engineers coming out of MiraCosta’s new program, but low- and mid-level production line workers and machinists.

“One of their big sore spots is around the attraction of that entry-level manufacturing talent, to the point where if there’s a company that offers 25 cents or more an hour, they’re seeing people jump ship to move over,” Sanford said. “That’s a sign there’s a shortage of supply.”

MiraCosta’s manufacturing course, now in its eighth session, may be able to catch up to manufacturers’ appetite now that it can fit 18 students per class, Sanford said. But the next hurdle, he said, was making sure enough students enrolled.

“Because we’re not talking about something that takes a year or longer to get a degree, I think we’ll start to see a return on investment (from the roundtable) in a relatively short order,” Sanford said. “It could be a matter of months. Part of this is figuring out what the continuation strategy will be. Follow-up is key.”

Bob Westfall, president of Vista-based lighting company Solatube International Inc., said he only recently learned that nearby Palomar College teaches computer-aided design, a skill he often looks for. He hopes the roundtable will allow schools to tell companies exactly what they offer, he said.

Solatube recently posted ads for injection mold operators, but did not receive many experienced applicants. The company instead decided to train two applicants itself.

“It takes us too long sometimes to fill a position or we end up having to restructure a department on what we can find,” he said. “We may be more inclined to embark on more manufacturing if the workforce was more readily available. The supply of workers is more limiting than customer demand.”

A (Big) Small Problem

Even with the expansion, Kurokawa said MiraCosta already is running out of space for new classes. The challenge, she said, is that while programs in other cities are sometimes subsidized by individual companies, most manufacturers in North County have fewer than 25 workers and would only need a handful of students at once.

“I don’t know of a single company that’s wanted 10 students at the same time,’ she said. “That’s why I’m not getting underwritten.”

James Hedgecock, founder of paddleboard manufacturer Bounce Composites in Oceanside, will be at the Innovate 78 meeting as well. Bounce is still a relatively small operation, with seven employees making about five boards a day using a plastic material that’s more flexible than the resins typically used for surfboards and paddleboards.

Hedgecock isn’t looking for particularly skilled workers, such as the ones coming out of MiraCosta, but says he’s encouraged that Innovate 78 might address the high costs that keep away potential North County employees.

“When we’re growing, we need more of those people and we can’t find them,” he said. “We need to figure out, as business leaders, as local government, how to band together and create a community that can provide what workers need at the right price to give them a good standard of living.”

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