Summers Engineering Confirm Todays “Balancing Act” in Manufacturing

No doubt times are tough and work inconsistent for not only Summers Engineering but other manufacturers in Australia. There is another side of the coin, another factor that manufacturers have to contend with, the issue of a shortage of “qualified and experienced” tradesmen. This is a strange contradiction of the first statement that manufacturers were facing difficult times.

Even with the numerous layoffs and business closures across the Australian manufacturing sector, there is still a shortage of experienced tradesmen over a range of manufacturing sectors.

Jeff Brivik, Operations Director of Summers Engineering – a CNC Repetition Engineering company based in Sydney says, “even with the downturn in our industry, we still, strangely enough, struggle to find decent and experienced tradesmen”. Brivik went on to say, “this is due to a number of factors, with the following being the top three factors that that he feels have caused the shortage.”

+ The reluctance of companies to take on apprentices over the past 5 to 10 years. This has been partly due to the uncertainty caused by the GFC, but also due to the availability of a steady supply of quality tradesman coming to Australia from the UK and Europe, which filled any shortages. With the resurgence of manufacturing in the UK this has slowed down considerably.+ Company owners are simply reluctant to let their good tradesman go, even when times are tough – they get rid of their lower quality tradesmen.+ When companies do eventually close (or are about to close) a number of tradesmen are leaving the manufacturing sector and going off to do something else, as they feel that their particular industry may not have a very rosy future.

This is where Summers Engineering places value on 457 visas and see many in their industry starting to use this option more and more.

“It really does make things difficult these days, since we’re all looking for work and ongoing orders, while at the same time we’re struggling to find high quality tradesmen to manufacture those orders.” Said Brivik.

To learn more about Summers Engineering and their services visit the website: http://www.summersengineering.com.au

About Summers Engineering

Summers Engineering is an Australian owned and nationally recognized CNC repetition engineering company, located in Sydney. Founded in 1952, Summers has come a long way since it’s modest beginnings, and today is a highly regarded producer of a vast array of precision components to a broad range of industries. The company specialises in short to medium size production runs of quantities from around 20, to circa 10000 if required.