As U.S. sets sights on more manufacturing jobs, 3M tries to boost flagging worker pipeline

V Wenham started college with plans for an English degree.

Now the St. Paul poet makes her living as a welder at Advanced Exhaust Solutions.

“I took a metal arts class, which I loved, and my professor encouraged me to pursue welding,” said Wenham, 21, who graduated from St. Paul College on Saturday. “It really changed my life.”

Long lacking workers, America’s skilled trades and manufacturers need to hear more stories like Wenham’s. A few million more.

At the beginning of the year, there were half a million manufacturing job openings around the country, according to federal data. By 2033, there could be 1.9 million unfilled manufacturing jobs in the U.S., a Deloitte and Manufacturing Institute study found.

A wave of retirements depleting the workforce will fuel the gap between jobs and qualified applicants. As will the promised boom of more stateside manufacturing from President Donald Trump’s trade policies.

There might not be enough trained or willing workers ready for the jobs that will already be available in manufacturing and skilled trades in the coming years, let alone if tariffs work as intended.

“If the number of people entering and graduating from degree programs that prepare them for high-skill manufacturing trades does not accelerate, the talent gap could widen,” the Deloitte study found. “Some manufacturers are taking an active role — and the lead — in addressing talent challenges."

3M senses the urgency. Even after layoffs in recent years and advances in automation, the company routinely has hundreds of job postings at its plants around the country.

The Maplewood-based manufacturer recently donated $500,000 to help remodel and outfit two Red Wing High School classrooms for robotics and advanced manufacturing labs, which will be open to all students starting this fall.

“How it looks, how it feels, our sense of that is important as we think about some of the trends we see about perceptions of manufacturing,” said Michael Stroik, 3M’s vice president of community relations. “So we can say to those students, ‘Hey, these are exciting fields that you can go into.’”

That mindset serves 3M, which makes safety equipment in Red Wing, to build its own talent pipeline amid a broader culture that emphasizes four-year degrees. Stroik said he is seeing more openness and support from school officials, parents and students about going into the trades and manufacturing.

The data is mixed. While the number of bachelor’s degrees continues to rise in the U.S., the tally of associate degrees issued every year has remained flat since 2011.

Certifications rose dramatically during the pandemic, however, and actually exceeded the number of two-year degrees awarded in 2022.

“It’s push and pull,” Stroik said. “The magnitude of it, millions of jobs, keeps me up at night. What built my confidence is getting out to Red Wing and talking to the instructors and seeing the excitement in students who are very clearly going to change the world someday.”

Many manufacturers are investing in workforce development in Minnesota to boost training efforts from industry groups and governments. Duluth-based Cirrus Aircraft runs its own Cirrus University training program, and window-and-door-manufacturer Marvin worked to bring a mechatronics program to Warroad.

Even companies that aren’t publicly acting on the issue are probably internally discussing it. Attracting and retaining workers has been a top issue for manufacturers for many years in Enterprise Minnesota’s annual state of manufacturing survey. The same is true nationally, though trade policy uncertainty topped the list of concerns to start 2025 in the National Association of Manufacturers quarterly survey.

Stroik wants to see more collaboration, a sort of “rising tides lifts all boats” approach across the industry.

“It’s bigger than one company,” he said.

For 3M, the company’s workforce development efforts extend beyond traditional manufacturing positions. Welders, electricians and others are all necessary to build and maintain machinery. Plus, 3M’s auto parts, construction safety equipment and other divisions benefit from helping customers of those businesses fill jobs.

The chasm between jobs and applicants is just as great with skilled trades as it is in manufacturing. About 30% of electricians will reach retirement age in the next decade, according to a McKinsey study. The churn in welders will be staggering in the coming years.

“We’re controlling what we can control,” said Garfield Bowen a vice president of government affairs at 3M. “We need to be relentless about doing everything we can to fill this gap.”

3M sponsored a “signing day” for skilled trades students at St. Paul College earlier this month. Among the students celebrating their commitment to a technical career was Mike Blackwood, who is starting his electrician apprenticeship with the Minneapolis local of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers this month.

“I’ve had a lot of jobs,” he said, “but never a career.”

Blackwood, 37, initially thought it would be too dangerous when he was deciding between trades. But he took the chance:

“I’ve discovered the love of my life.”