According to the Wall Street Journal, manufacturing could be the place to be for a decent-paying job and low unemployment. An article in today’s Journal points to the fact that chemical plant and system operators top the manufacturing wage scale at a $55, 900 median wage. Unemployment in manufacturing is now running at 4%, compared to the 5.1% for the economy at large.
Another observation from the article: “Another big growth area is in process-control skills needed for such industries as food, pharmaceuticals and chemicals. New petrochemical plants in Texas and Louisiana will spur demand for those skills.”
Hat tip to Terry McMahon, long-time Control columnist for the link. In his email to Paul Studebaker he said, "When I entered the field 54 years ago, process control was a tiny specialized niche which you couldn't find with a microscope in most ChE curricula. The process operators regarded control specialists as nuisances who only made their jobs more difficult. You've come a long way baby!"
