The U.S. Furniture Industry Is Back — but There Aren’t Enough Workers

I blame former potus Bill Clinton(D). But the solution of home-grown industry trade schools to train new workers highlights the genius of the free market to adapt, improvise, and overcome - while better serving its customers and workers.

Ruth Simon at WSJ (paywall):

"Here’s the good news: There are now more reasons to make furniture in the U.S. than at any point since the financial crisis. Crate & Barrel and Williams-Sonoma Inc. are expanding manufacturing in the U.S., and the factories of longtime furniture makers are humming.

Here’s the bad news: There aren’t enough skilled workers available to support the renaissance.

Manufacturers across the country are struggling to fill open slots in a tight U.S. labor market. Furniture companies, which for decades have been hit by competition from China, face special challenges after years of shrinking. A generation of prospective sewers and upholsterers have steered clear of the industry, leaving it heavily reliant on an aging workforce.

...“Pretty much all the companies that survived the last crisis have been in a growth mode,” said John Bray, chief executive of Vanguard Furniture Co., which has about 600 employees. “When business picked up, there just weren’t enough skilled people.”

"One answer is the Catawba Valley Furniture Academy here, created by local companies struggling to find skilled employees in partnership with Catawba Valley Community College. Furniture makers are also, for the first time, creating internal training programs and adding benefits such as free health clinics.

The academy launched in 2014 at the urging of five local companies, which helped develop the curriculum, donated supplies and provided employees whom the college pays to serve as instructors. Students spend eight months studying manual cutting or sewing, at a total cost of around $425; an 11-month upholstery program costs about $600.

“The good news is we can graduate 150 people a year,” said Vanguard’s Mr. Bray. “The bad news is that the industry needs 800 to 1,000 people.”

Business is booming because consumers demand custom furniture - not cookie cutter imports -, and Trump's tariffs on cheap Chinese goods spurred American manufacturers to move production home. It also made a change in industry attitudes:

"Craftmaster Furniture Inc., based in nearby Taylorsville, N.C., recently set out yard signs offering a $2,000 signing bonus for experienced seamstresses. Soon after, a friend told CEO Roy Calcagne that he had spotted the signs in a competitor’s trunk. “It’s every man for himself when it comes to hiring people,” Mr. Calcagne said.

Craftmaster has a doctor and nurse offering free medical care on site four days a week, and gives raises every four weeks to trainees who show improvement. “The old-school way used to be that you were lucky to have a job,” Mr. Calcagne said. “The way we look at it today is we are lucky to have you here.”

I blame potus Donald Trump.