Finding data center staff is one of the top jobs of data center executives and part of the reason they are out at the data center conferences. NYTimes has an article about the skill worker mismatch in manufacturing.
Factory Jobs Return, but Employers Find Skills Shortage
David Maxwell for The New York Times
Students at Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland are training for manufacturing jobs. More Photos »
By MOTOKO RICH
BEDFORD, Ohio — Factory owners have been adding jobs slowly but steadily since the beginning of the year, giving a lift to the fragile economic recovery. And because they laid off so many workers — more than two million since the end of 2007 — manufacturers now have a vast pool of people to choose from.
Yet some of these employers complain that they cannot fill their openings.
The job shortage is for the type of workers in data centers.
Now they are looking to hire people who can operate sophisticated computerized machinery, follow complex blueprints and demonstrate higher math proficiency than was previously required of the typical assembly line worker.
Makers of innovative products like advanced medical devices and wind turbines are among those growing quickly and looking to hire, and they too need higher skills.
Given the labor shortage in data centers, I am curious how many people are coming from other industries.
Employers say they are looking for aptitude as much as specific skills. “We are trying to find people with the right mindset and intelligence,” said Mr. Murphy.
Ben Venue has recruited about half its new factory hires from outside the pool of former manufacturing workers. Zachary Flyer, a 32-year-old Army veteran, had been laid off from a law firm filing room when he applied at the drug maker last summer.
He spent four months this year learning how to operate a 400-square-foot freeze dryer that helps preserve vials of medicine. Monitoring vacuum pressure and temperatures on a color-coded computer screen with flashing numbers, Mr. Flyer said last month that he preferred his new work to the law firm, where he had spent seven years.
The vast majority of you outsource your data center maintenance and operations.
How do you manage your Service Level Agreements (SLA) for your data center maintenance?