The new decade begins in four years and manufacturers are already planning ahead for their workforce needs in ways not seen in the past. That’s because we are in the midst of the Great Baby Boomer Retirement Cycle. Millions of highly skilled Americans in all types of businesses will be retiring over the next ten years and beyond. Finding skilled younger people who want to work in careers as diverse as manufacturing and accounting is a huge challenge on the radar screen of American managers.

Just take a look at Rockwell Collins, a designer and manufacturer of communications and aviation electronics equipment headquartered in the heart of the American Heartland, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. With the business growth they see on the horizon over the rest of this decade, they forecast that they will need a many as 7,000 new employees, not even including replacements for current workers. The company’s total employment today is about 17,000 worldwide, but Rockwell Collins managers say that about 30 percent of that workforce could retire between 2005 and 2015.

That’s why at National Manufacturing Week last week, the manufacturers’ survey results showed that finding and training a skilled workforce was one of the top challenges. Most don’t believe that they can just take it for granted that this workforce will materialize on time and with the right skill sets. If you’d like to learn more about this, be sure to read Skills Gap 2005 released recently by The Manufacturing Institute, NAM and Deloitte Consulting. It is based on a survey of 800 manufacturers and discusses the shortages and some of the ways in which manufacturers will cope with it. One of the most creative and effective steps has been the Dream It. Do It. campaign, which has been successful in Kansas City in raising the applications for technical school by 35 percent.

As most every US manufacturer knows, for the past decade or so, China has pegged its currency to the US dollar, not allowing it to float to the market rate. As a result, Chinese goods sold in the US are artificially cheaper, by some estimates as much as 30% or more. At the NAM we have been leading the charge to get China to re-value its currency. But we can’t do it alone, we need the help of manufacturers to make it happen.

The US Department of the Treasury reports to Congress every six months on whether any foreign countries are manipulating their currencies in a way that affects US trade. Thus far, they have not put China on that list, despite repeated urgings from us. If they cite China, it will send a loud and clear message to the PRC that it’s time for action. This year, for the first time, Treasury is seeking input from manufacturers themselves on this issue. The deadline for comments is April 7.

We have made it easy for you to weigh in. There are two options:

– By clicking on this link, you can access a ready-made message that you can tailor to your own circumstances and send to the Treasury Department.

– You can click on this link and e-mail Treasury directly. The subject line of your e-mail should say, “Attn: Request for Public Comments on the Report to Congress on International and Exchange Rate Policies.” Please copy us at pjcleary@nam.org.

Please take a moment to take action on this very important issue.

In the classic film, “Casablanca“, Claude Rains as Capt. Renault, standing in his own casino, utters the famous line, “I’m shocked! Shocked! To find that there’s gambling going on in here!” Less well-known except to fans of that film is what follows: the croupier approaches him with a bunch of money, hands it to him saying, “Your winnings, sir.” Major League Baseball’s latest reaction to the steroid scandal reminded us of that scene.

First there was the “25 strikes-and-you-might-be-out” policy — and this time we really mean it! Then there was the “three strikes and your kinda out” policy. Now, in light of a new damning book alleging widespread steroid use in major league baseball, Lightnin’ Bud Selig has taken the bold step of appointing Former Sen. George Mitchell (D-ME) — a member of the Boston Red Sox Board of Directors and a member of the Board of Directors of Disney, who owns ESPN (a MLB “partner”, according to its site) — to get to the bottom of this, yessirree.

Now we think George Mitchell is probably a fine guy and all, but the problem here is the molasses-like speed with which they moved, and then only after they were totally embarrassed by this book. When they moved, they did so with an insider from the world of baseball, rather than with a clean-as-a-whistle outsider with no vested interest. No matter, had the book never been written, MLB would still be whistling past the steroid graveyard. Better a lousy start than none at all, we ‘spose.

And so we applaud MLB — although the sound you hear is the sound of only one hand clapping — for finally being embarrassed into getting to the bottom of this burgeoning scandal. With the help of steroids, the mouse in the room became the elephant in the room. Maybe George Mitchell can get to the bottom of it. For Bud Selig, all we can say is, “Your winnings, sir….”

We have a rule of thumb around the blog corral: If we get the same tidbit sent to us more than once, it qualifies as an automatic entry in Friday Follies. Now some may say that receiving it more than once would mean that it’s not cutting edge, that it’s stale, but we don’t buy it. First, as anyone who’s been reading this blog for any length of time knows, we’re all about stale, starting with the writing. Second, we subscribe to the Arlo Guthrie “Alice’s Restaurant” theory that any more than one becomes a movement.

And so it was with this short ad for Berlitz. We got it from a few different blog readers, most recently from the always- reliable Ron Reisman. He is one of our two loyal blog readers. (That oughta tell you something about Ron). But he’s a good manufacturer who keeps an eye out for us.

And so we present this week’s Friday Follies. Click on this link to watch it.

From today’s WaPo, an op-ed by Michael Kinsley entitled, “The Twilight of Objectivity” that opens thusly:

“CNN”s Lou Dobbs…has turned into a raving populist xenophobe.”

Being a Blogger definitely has its advantages. Sometimes, we get treated with the same “respect” as the MSM press and get comped invites to cool dinners and events.

Although, tonight is not a night you’d want to identify yourself with the MSM, but its always a great night when you get comped for a cool dinner.

As we have noted previously, in Washington, DC there is usually one event every week that everybody tries to beg to get into…the one event that you want to be seen at.

Well, tonight that event was

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Since the start of this decade, manufacturing has shed 3 million jobs. During the recession, the manufacturing sector lost jobs at a steady pace for over 40 consecutive months. Yet the rest of the economy was adding jobs, having racked up 5 million new, non-manufacturing jobs since 2000. Many of you read those numbers and think U.S. manufacturing is surely washed up. After all, don’t job growth and output go hand in hand?

NAM Chief Economist David Huether tackled that question this week in a well-reasoned article in BusinessWeek…

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In response to our post earlier this week on immigration, our in-house immigration expert, Sandy Boyd, VP of Human Resources Policy here at the NAM posted the following comment. We elevate it in case you missed it , because it’s really good, explains why we’re in this fight:

“It’s not just about temporary visas (H1-Bs), it’s also about green cards: a system plagued with backlogs and arbitrarily low caps too. More often than not companies want these very talented folks permanently but use H1-bs as a “work around” because the green card process is so slow and there is no direct path from advanced degree student to green card holder. The bill the Senate Judiciary Committee passed (and Majority Leader Frist’s bill as well) understand the problem–and address all three pieces 1. Attracting the world best minds to our universities 2. Making the H1-B cap more market driven and 3. Fixing the green card system so that we can keep the world’s best talent. While this may be labeled “immigration” reform, most employers who struggle to find enough engineers, researchers and scientists to keep work here is the United States have another word for it: competitiveness.”

Yesterday found NAM President John Engler in Pittsburgh, great manufacturing town and home of the World Champion Pittsburgh Steelers. He spoke to the prestigious Economic Club of Pittsburgh.

In his speech, he hammered on the theme of energy and competitiveness. Here’s a link to his remarks.

We were at a speech on Monday of this week to a group of manufacturers, ran into a guy from New Jersey — the Cradle of Civilization and the Blogger-in-chief’s home state. We asked him how the new Gov. Corzine was doing. “Well”, he replied, “He ran on a platform of tax cuts and is now raising our taxes.”

It appears the Wall Street Journal was listening. Here’s their editorial from yesterday on Gov. Corzine’s famous flip-flop. Sadly, New Jersey has the highest property taxes in the country. A major manufacturing state, we wonder how on earth they’ll continue to attract business.

By the way, ever wonder how competitive your state is? Check out the Competitiveness Redbook. It’s all spelled out in there.