Last week the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness announced that nearly 50 businesses have pledged to double or increase the number of STEM internships available to students. Many of these businesses which have agreed to increase internships are manufacturers.

In case you missed it here is an excerpt from the National Association of Manufacturers press release on the announcement:

“Advanced education and training is becoming increasingly more important to manufacturers. If employees do not have the right training and skills, manufacturers in the United States will fall behind our competitors, harming our economic growth,” said NAM President and CEO Jay Timmons. “These manufacturers are to be commended for taking an important step to increase the number of STEM internship opportunities, which is critical to economic growth and job creation.”

From Pittsburgh Business Times on the announcement:

The council’s goal is to address the country’s shortage of STEM workers. According to information released by the annual amount of engineers graduating from U.S. universities has remained steady at about 120,000 from 1990 and 2010. However, about 1 million engineers a year graduate from universities in India and China.

We would like to highlight a few manufacturers that have also agreed to increase internships, which include FMC Corporation, Corning Incorporated, Longview Fibre and Eastman Chemical. We thank these companies for taking this step to help improve education and training for students which is extremely important to our manufacturing competitiveness.