BY SHAWN PIATEK
Originally published on March 9, 2008
Defense companies across the country - including Northrop Grumman Corp. - soon will be feeling the pinch from a drop in available technology-savvy workers.
But Northrop's Johnstown plant also could be part of the solution.
A national report by The Associated Press shows that the aerospace and defense industries will face work-force attrition at a startling rate during the next decade. For Northrop Grumman, about half of the defense giant's 122,000 employees company-wide will be eligible for retirement in the next five to 10 years.
Northrop Grumman's situation is a reflection of the problem industry-wide. Almost 60 percent of U.S. aerospace and defense workers in 2007 were 45 years or older.
But Northrop's office in Johnstown's Cambria City neighborhood will be one of seven offices across the company that Northrop designates as a National Work Force Center location.
One of the main goals for the local office is to recruit top engineering talent from schools such as Pitt Johnstown, Carnegie Mellon and Penn State. Students can work in the Johnstown office supporting such programs as missile defense and network communications.
"Our work force over the age of 45 is under 15 percent," said Bill Moynihan, program manager for Northrop's Johnstown office. "Our focus has been to hire more junior- and middle-level people so that\ we can start making this transition over the next 15 years."
The local Northrop office has about 50 employees. It intends to increase that force after it moves to the Greater Johnstown Regional Technology Park later this year.
'Competition is fierce'
Concurrent Technologies Corp., based in Richland Township, is feeling a similar labor squeeze. The company, which has just more than 1,400 employees worldwide, now has 200 vacant positions, just more than 100 of them in Johnstown.
Michelle Tutko, manager of work-force planning and staffing at CTC, said the company is aggressively increasing its recruiting efforts. The difficulty isn't just competing with other defense companies for the top technological minds, it also is battling with companies such as Google and Microsoft that offer young workers a completely different set of challenges and rewards.
"A couple of months ago, we had gone to Carnegie Mellon to do some mock interviews with a variety of students," Tutko said. "Many of them had already been spoken to by the Googles of the world."
Defense giant Boeing is up against telecom giants such as Verizon Communications Inc. and Sprint Nextel Corp. as it grows its satellite business. It even competes with video game makers such as Electronic Arts Inc. for 3D graphic designers and software programmers.
"The competition is fierce for these kids coming out of college," Tutko said. "The recruitment team is finding that it needs to get to campus earlier and more often. That will only continue to grow more challenging as the competition grows."
According to the AP, in 2005, U.S. universities awarded 196,797 undergraduate and graduate degrees in engineering, math and computer science, according to the Commission on Professionals in Science and Technology. That is up sharply from 77,790 degrees in 1966
'Fair share of attrition'
Local companies agree that the nature of the region itself can be both a positive and a negative when recruiting employees.
Companies here use the region's traits as drawing cards for many employees.
"Some of the advantages we would have here in Johnstown would be lower cost of living and higher quality of life you're not going to find in a city," Tutko said.
"You still get to do some of the leading-edge, high-tech things. But you get to do it in an environment that offers a better quality of life."
At the same time, the region's lack of entertainment options and nightlife can be a detraction, specifically when recruiting and retaining single young adults.
"We have had our fair share of attrition, but it is pretty focused on the single guy who is in his first job out of college and not having much of a life in Johnstown," Moynihan said.
"That's the single factor that people have most cited to me for their reason for leaving. Our family folks are all set. They're very happy here and would like to stay here for a very long time."