HellermannTyton has completed the renovations of its new Milwaukee manufacturing facility but is still having difficulty hiring enough skilled workers to fill it.
The global cable management product manufacturer purchased the 92,000-square-foot building at 6701-11 W. Good Hope Road, in July. It is HellermannTyton’s third Milwaukee manufacturing plant.
The plan is to hire 75 workers over the next three years, 25 of them immediately. But with production up and running, HellermannTyton is still 10 employees short, said Peter Jonas, vice president of operations.
Some of those unfilled positions are in automation, which requires programming, mechanical and electrical skills. Automation technicians maintain and repair the automation equipment.
“We’ve always had difficulty finding technically skilled people, especially in the automation area,” Jonas said. “The whole automation field, there’s not a whole lot of people involved with it. It’s very tight as far as talent goes.”
Jonas is also looking for maintenance technicians, supervisors and process technicians.
The company is reaching out to technical schools and working to develop internal training for its automation programs.
“We’ve hired people recently that don’t have as much experience as we were looking for in the past,” Jonas said. “We’re now to the point where we might have to hire them right out of technical schools…and develop them internally.”
