It’s Only Common Sense: Your Biggest Competitor Is Complacency
The Chemical Connection: Onshoring PCB Production—Daunting but Certainly Possible
Marcy’s Musings: The Legislative Outlook—Helping or Hurting?
A Game Plan for Upskilling Your Fab Workforce
May 10, 2022 | I-Connect007 Editorial TeamEstimated reading time: 2 minutes
There’s been a lot of talk among PCB manufacturers about the need to upskill their workforce. But where do you start—do you set up your own program or send staff to third-party training centers?
The I-Connect007 Editorial Team recently asked David Hernandez, IPC vice president of education, to weigh in on this topic, and the criteria that goes into creating IPC training programs. In addition to upskilling strategies, David also delves into the need for our industry to develop a labor pipeline, as well as the challenges we face in hiring, training, and retaining employees in this industry during a tight labor market.
Nolan Johnson: Dave, our conversation today is on upskilling and how the circuit board fabricators should be looking at that situation. This is a big issue for the industry as we deal with staffing issues.
David Hernandez: We are seeing challenges for companies trying to hire at the operator level, the unskilled or low-skill level, but also seeing the same challenges at the high-skill levels, like engineering, as well. Now, there are different challenges in each one, but the consistent theme across the board is that we don’t have a pipeline that is feeding talent directly into the industry, and therefore industry is struggling to identify ways to bring in talent. Once they bring in the talent, they’re having challenges to onboard and level-set that talent, because they’re not pre-trained. They are also having challenges just keeping talent in the industry.
Finally, and it’s a big part of what this conversation is about: Once they have that talent in the industry and they’re able to keep them, how are they able to continually upskill them to new technologies, new processes, and best practices? When we talk about these challenges, it’s not one thing; it’s really a culmination of these different challenges throughout the industry coming together at the same time.
Johnson: Interesting. I was about to ask you whether one tackles this by hiring people with proven skills or by hiring people who seem to have an aptitude and then training them. I think I know the answer.
Hernandez: You should hire whoever you can hire at this point. You take whatever you can get. It’s kind of funny (but not really), but I have companies that have told me they will hire people out of supermarkets. They will take anyone that they can get at this point because the challenges are so great that they would rather have a body who is untrained than not have anyone.
Johnson: Well, that certainly does put a spotlight on basic training and upskilling.
Hernandez: Yes. It’s a perfect storm today.
To read the entire interview, which appeared in the April 2022 issue of PCB007 Magazine, click here.
Share on:
Testimonial
"Your magazines are a great platform for people to exchange knowledge. Thank you for the work that you do."
Simon Khesin - Schmoll MaschinenSuggested Items
SMTAI 2025 Review: Reflecting on a Pragmatic and Forward-looking Industry
10/27/2025 | Marcy LaRont, I-Connect007Leaving the show floor on the final afternoon of SMTA International last week in Rosemont, Illinois, it was clear that the show remains a grounded, technically driven event that delivers a solid program, good networking, and an easy space to commune with industry colleagues and meet with customers.
Come Together: Tom Marktscheffel Used Data to Build CFX and a Global Factory Standard
10/27/2025 | Sandy Gentry, Community MagazineWhen Tom Marktscheffel, director of product management software solutions at ASMPT, looks back on his nearly three decades in electronics manufacturing, one word stands out: data. “Data is the new gold,” he says. Without it, automation, artificial intelligence, and the factory of the future are impossible. With it, the industry can move from manual, error-prone processes to smart, connected systems that make real-time decisions.
Simplifying Software Integration for Every Factory
10/22/2025 | Nolan Johnson, SMT007 MagazineAs a leading provider of factory digitalization solutions for electronics manufacturers, Cogiscan is at the heart of the software integration process. Davina McDonnell, director of marketing and product management, discusses how Cogiscan ensures that customers are ready to integrate and what it looks for to ensure a quick and appropriate installation.
MES Software Tools Need Thoughtful Integration
10/21/2025 | Nolan Johnson, SMT007 MagazineThe Global Electronics Association recently published a survey report on the state of EMS production software. This project, led by Thiago Guimaraes, director of industry intelligence, connects the dots across the global electronics value chain to uncover practical insights that individual companies might not have seen on their own. In this interview, Thiago discusses the whys and hows of this report.
SEMICON West: The Path to a $1 Trillion Future
10/14/2025 | Marcy LaRont, I-Connect007After more than 50 years in San Francisco, SEMICON West moved its 2025 show to Phoenix, which is significant because it highlights the importance of Arizona as a semiconductor and tech hub. Though the show will be back in San Francisco in 2026, the overwhelmingly warm welcome SEMI received from Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs, Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego, and ASU President Michael Crowe—who has been responsible for ASU repeatedly achieving the U.S. News and World Reports most innovative university ranking—was remarked upon repeatedly. All indications are that SEMICON West may well be back in Phoenix after that 2026 season.