According to a survey conducted recently by the Manufacturing Institute and Deloitte, 80 percent of manufacturers face a moderate to severe shortage of skilled workers.  In a country with 9.1 percent unemployment, jobs are going unfilled because employers can’t find worker with the right skills.

The National Association of Manufacturers and the Manufacturing Institute are trying to fix this skills-gap problem and are seeing support for their efforts in the public and private sectors.  It was just a few months ago that President Obama endorsed the Institute’s national skills certification system.

Today, in Plymouth, Minnesota (just outside of Minneapolis), the Manufacturing Institute, members of the President’s Council on Job’s and Competitiveness and representatives from local businesses and educational institutions gathered at Productivity to launch Right Skills Now, a program that will train workers for jobs in modern manufacturing.

Also attending the event were NAM President and CEO Jay Timmons, who introduced Small Business Administrator Karen Mills, and the Manufacturing Institute’s Jennifer McNelly.