Mark Denzler, President & CEO at Illinois Manufacturers’ Association, posted recently about the growth of manufacturing academies in Illinois. Years ago, the IMA worked with Illinois state government to get two academies off the ground.
We held this year’s annual Kentucky Industry Conference (KYIC) October 27-29, in partnership with the Metals Innovation Initiative (MI2) and the Kentucky Manufacturing Extension Partnership (KY-MEP) On the evening of the 27th, we opened the conference with a fireside chat about the rising challenge of Chinese competition with the U.S., specifically as it affects American manufacturing and industry.
In a recent opinion piece, the Wall Street Journal editorial board outlined the history of the 340B program, and praised some efforts toward reform.
We recently released our annual Wage & Workforce Study report, which gives an up-to-date snapshot of the manufacturing workplace in Kentucky. Typically, we’ve asked manufacturers to share what their starting wages are for production jobs. For 2025, we added a question about wages in those same jobs for someone with five years of experience. This revealed some encouraging data about the upward path of manufacturing careers.
NASA recently analyzed the U.S. aerospace industry workforce and discovered that there will be a shortage of approximately one million workers by 2030. The “aerospace industry” is a term that may be new to many folks who are not already involved. It includes jobs ranging in complexity from operating a metal stamping machine, to programing precision machining tools, all the way to engineering positions. That prompted NASA to call on states to develop proposals for “aerospace career hubs” which would bring a new influx of talent from rising generations.