INDUSTRY
HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE.COM
•
JANUARY 2013
•
ILLUSTRATION BY DANIEL HERTZBERG
53
FRANK LITFIN FEELS LIKE
he’s tried everything, from the
local job bank to the help-wanted ads on Craigslist. “I’mat
the point where I’m ready to go out and stand on the road
in a chicken suit carrying a sign,” he says.
But Litfin isn’t looking for a job. He has one, overseeing
hiring at a toolmaking company near Detroit. What he’s
trying to find is
employees
—
particularly ones who can
run the complicated CNC, or computer numerical con-
trol, machine tools at the booming plant. The company,
Moeller Manufacturing, has about 120 machinists, and
Litfin is struggling to hire 30 more. The task is daunting,
but at least a li le easier than it was a few months ago,
when he had 70 positions to fill.
While you wouldn’t think a metro area with 11.3 per-
cent unemployment could be facing a worker shortage,
such is the paradox of Detroit today. In this automaking
capital there are 2,000 jobs languishing unfilled at
companies like Litfin’s that build, use or maintain CNC
machine tools—all of which require intensive train-
ing. The many firms working in the fast-growing field
of hybrid technology have more than 1,000 vacancies
among them. A cluster of three high-tech
MOTOWN RISING
DETROIT IS IN A CURIOUS PREDICAMENT: IT HAS HIGH UNEMPLOYMENT BUT ALSO
THOUSANDS OF OPEN JOBS IN TECH AND HIGH-SKILLEDMANUFACTURING.
THE UNPRECEDENTED SOLUTION THAT ITS BUSINESSES, SCHOOLS AND LOCAL
AGENCIES HAVE DEVISED COULD SERVE AS AMODEL FOR THE NATION.
BY JONMARCUS
