The job market for candidates with 3D printing and advanced manufacturing skills has grown over 1300% in the last 4 years
According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the number of college graduates currently underemployed – in jobs that do not need a college degree – is at a 20-year high. About 25% of college graduates don’t make any more money than they would have with only a high school diploma. The debt burden has caused many to rethink the value of a college degree – even considering college to be a risky investment.
But when it comes to students graduating from the ISE Department, it is a far different scenario. Graduates are finding that instead of the applicants outnumbering the job openings, it is the other way around. This is especially true for students with 3D printing and Additive Manufacturing (AM) experience. Jobs are appearing faster than candidates can fill them. In the United States and around the world, The nature of manufacturing has begun to shift. Mass customization is beginning to overtake mass production.
According to the website Wanted Analytics, the number of job ads requiring workers with 3D printing and AM skills increased a staggering 1,384% since July 2010. From August 2013 to August 2014 alone, that number grew 103%. Most in-demand: industrial engineers. The new manufacturing renaissance has ended the talk of manufacturing being dead in the U.S. This has caused students to flock in increasing numbers to the engineering discipline. Enrollment in the ISE program has more than doubled.
ISE’s Center for Additive Manufacturing and Logistics is one of the most advanced facilities of its kind. It houses more than 20 3D printers that can work with plastics, metals and ceramics. But its crown jewel is the world’s first EBM (electron beam melting) machine.
Many still regard manufacturing as a dirty, “smokestack” industry. But innovations in design and technology have transformed manufacturing into a clean and efficient discipline, capable of the customized production of anything from medical devices and implants to machine parts – even body parts. Experts agree that researchers have just started to scratch the surface of what 3D printing can do.
Manufacturing in the U.S. is reinventing itself. At ISE, student research is leading the renaissance. They are connecting the moving parts of a new interdependent manufacturing environment and industry is knocking at their door.