 Both textile and furniture manufacturers are working with community colleges on educational programs that will develop the next generation of factory employees. |
HIGH POINT — Upholsterers and sewers are in high demand at furniture factories, but despite salaries that can eventually top $50,000 a year for seasoned employees, manufacturers say that filling positions on the floor continues to be one of their primary challenges in growing their businesses.
“The biggest issue we face is the lack of skilled workers to make our products,” said Roy Calcagne, president and CEO of Craftmaster Furniture, a Taylorsville, N.C.-based manufacturer that produces moderately priced upholstery as well as the Paula Deen Home collection. “Craftmaster has grown double digits every year over the past five years, and we have grown from 475 people to 650 people in that time frame. The availability of skilled workers has not kept up with the growth, and many upholstery companies in the Hickory area are experiencing the same issues.”
Calcagne said the furniture industry’s current upholstery work force includes many employees nearing retirement age over the next five years.
He added that skilled upholsterers and sewers will be in great demand, but the pool of available employees is likely to remain insufficient unless manufacturers adopt an aggressive, proactive approach.
“There is a poor image of furniture manufacturing from the past, and there is a motivational gap between younger individuals and demanding work,” Calcagne said. “As an industry, we have to change the message about the industry as a career choice and show that it offers high-paying jobs, career advancement, management opportunities and nice work environments.”
Len Burke, vice president at Klaussner Home Furnishings, agreed.
“Young people coming out of high school do not look at entering into a manufacturing job as a career; they don’t see opportunities for advancement,” he said. “We have to let them know that the industry offers competitive pay and benefits along with career advancement opportunities.”
Craftmaster is developing internal and external strategies to address current and future employee shortages. An in-house training program currently includes 23 upholstery and seven sewing trainees in the factories, and additional plans have been developed that will expand the search into the surrounding communities.
“We have developed a Furniture Academy in Alexander County that will launch in 2016 to train upholsterers and sewers for current and future positions,” Calcagne said. “It is win-win for the student, the manufacturers and the community.”
Burke said Klaussner is taking a similar approach.
“We are working with the local community colleges, work force development and even the high schools to attract a new work force,” he said.
Sew Difficult
 Students in the Catawba Valley Community College Furniture Academy are trained in a classroom setting that has been designed like a manufacturer’s factory. |
Mississippi upholstery manufacturers are also facing a tight labor market, not only within the furniture industry but also from other industries with higher technology and higher wage jobs supported by local and government efforts to diversify the economy.
According to several upholstery manufacturers in Mississippi, the prevailing issue is the difficulty replacing an aging workforce, especially among upholsterers and sewing machine operators. Despite recent reshoring efforts and a gradual increase in furniture manufacturing employment since 2011 (based on research from the Franklin Furniture Institute at Mississippi State University), the state has not recovered from the globalization of furniture manufacturing that began in the late 1990s.
“When everything left in 2006 to 2008 and went to China, Mississippians lost faith that the furniture industry was sustainable on our soil,” said G Lipscomb, executive vice president of sales and marketing at Southern Motion.
That sentiment is shared by Al Wiygul, CEO of Ecru, Miss.-based American Furniture Manufacturing, which expanded production last month to a 140,000-square-foot plant in Amory, Miss.
“We have a very good solid force — about 80% is stable,” Wiygul said. “But replacing workers and hiring for our new plant has been very difficult. Those who left the workforce (due to offshoring) are not coming back because they don’t trust the business. The quality of new entrants is not as high as it was 10 years ago.”
Wiygul and other executives estimate that it takes six months to properly train upholsterers with the caveat that a certain degree of craftsmanship cannot be trained. But even with sufficient training, he said retention of employees can be difficult. In the Ecru-Pontotoc area, the number of local manufacturers makes it a worker’s market, and Wiygul said that other factors play a role as well.
“There are certain aspects of making furniture that are very labor intensive,” Wiygul said. “We haven’t automated to the level of other industries. Upholstery work, frame building, back fill and cushion fill are very strenuous jobs that are hard on the body. Some coming in are not willing to work that hard. There are (job) options out there that are less physically strenuous.
 The CVCC Furniture Academy has several disciplines that students can choose as a focus. |
“Sewing labor is impossible to find,” continued Wiygul. “We used a sewing trainer at the community college for six to eight weeks of training. Twenty started the program, 10 went all the way through, and we kept three. Part of the challenge for our business as it pertains to training for sewing labor is balancing the capacity and demand.”
In 2011 when Toyota built its plant about 20 miles from Ecru, the car maker’s 2,000 higher-technology, higher-waged jobs were instant competition for northern Mississippi furniture makers.
“It appears the focus of the community and the state is on higher technology jobs,” Wiygul said. “There is less emphasis on current manufacturing and operations and more on trying to get new and different industry into the area.”
Travel to northeast Pennsylvania, home to several lift chair manufacturers, and the countryside changes, but the challenging labor landscape does not.
“There is simply a shortage of skilled workers in upholstery manufacturing,” said Ralph Emmett, vice president of operations at Old Forge, Pa.-based lift chair manufacturer UltraComfort America.
“Upholstery is the most challenging skill set to find in our manufacturing facility, with sewing a close second,” Emmett said. “The difficulty is not only in finding employees to fill the positions, but it also lies in the dedication needed to learn the skill of upholstering our product. Due to the wide variety of designs, frames, fabrics, along with our high levels of quality control, the normal training time for this position is anywhere from four to six months. Even though we have strong training programs within all manufacturing departments, the attention to detail on the wide variety of products we produce is a skill set that not everyone possesses.”
Bucking the Trend
While the shrinking of skilled upholstery labor domestically is the most prevalent narrative, there are pockets where the problem may be mitigated by factors specific to the organization or the community.
At Franklin Corp. in Houston, Miss., just 35 miles south of Tupelo, the 45-year-old upholstery producer is the largest employer in the county and has not experienced the worker shortage that’s plagued other upholstery manufacturers, according to Chuck Tidwell, vice president of merchandising and product development.
 Skills like hand-tying sofas are part of the training. |
“We are fortunate,” said Tidwell. “There’s a strong commitment that goes both ways. We are a family-owned company that has been so good to its employees over the years that the younger generation sees that, and they know there is opportunity for them if they want to work at Franklin. For those who pursue higher education, there are possibilities for them here too.”
In addition to dedicating two lines to train for skilled upholstery work, Tidwell said making adjustments in production to meet demand has prevented “big swings in the workforce” and that shifting workers across the company’s different product categories has been an effective practice to maintain a stable production workforce.
Headquartered in Ferdinand, Ind., Best Home Furnishings is positioned as “the employer of choice in Dubois County,” according to Stuart Curtis, vice president of operations. Curtis said the county has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the state at less than 3% because it offers “attractive starting wages, outstanding earning potential and excellent health care and other benefits.”
“Both small and large manufacturers may be challenged by tight labor markets, but in different ways,” Curtis said. “A small manufacturer may need fewer new employees to accomplish growth goals, but may have difficulty offering benefits and training that are demanded in a tight labor market. A large manufacturer may have the resources necessary to offer a competitive employment package, but may find the sheer number of employees they need to be impractical to hire in an especially tight labor market.”
Emmett of UltraComfort America offered another perspective.
“A smaller company has a great advantage over a larger company with regards to this subject,” he said. “First of all, it simply needs fewer workers to produce its products and achieve a profitable business model. It also has the advantage of having a warm ‘family’ feel to it, with the individual knowing he or she is an important part of the process.”
The Search for Solutions
The alarm has sounded on the skilled labor shortage, and Bill Martin, the director of the Franklin Furniture Institute at MSU, said the industry is responding.
 Instructors for the CVCC Furniture Academy are from the furniture industry and offer firsthand knowledge of manufacturing operations. |
“We recognize there is a problem, and we are putting in place programmatic solutions,” Martin said. “We have to come at it from all three levels — education, industry, and state government support — working together and communicating to solve the problem. It took 10 years (offshoring) to get us where we are, and it will take time to fix it, but there is a full court press now to create a program, working with manufacturers and the Mississippi Development Authority, to address the skills gap and enhance skill sets for high school, community college, existing workers and those who want to enter the industry.”
“The future worker shortage (will) be even more challenging,” Emmett predicted. “This is due to the Baby Boomers now moving into retirement age and leaving the work force. U.S. manufacturers have a very real challenge ahead of us. The future is now. We cannot postpone any good plan for replenishing the pool of workers today.”
In addition to working with the local Chamber of Commerce and agencies to promote UltraComfort as a family owned and operated business that practices “the Golden rule” as an employer, Emmett identified specific things the company offers to keep a strong, motivated work force, including fair pay, assistance with health insurance coverage, liberal time-off policies, opportunities for employees to give feedback about their job, safe and clean factory working conditions, and company-sponsored social events.
At Best Home Furnishings, Curtis said, “The challenging employment market requires creative advertising and recruitment tactics to land new hires as well as a commitment to employee involvement programs to retain existing employees. Best has implemented innovative training methods to speed development of new sewing and upholstery employees, and we are increasing efforts with local community colleges and high schools to inform potential employees on career opportunities in the furniture industry and to help develop curriculum suited to our needs.”
American’s Wiygul said, “We didn’t fight the move to China or the duties on roll goods hard enough. Because of the abundance in the past, we abused the labor force by flexing and laying off as the business fluctuated. For the first time in 20 years, the demand is greater than the capacity. Now we need to be smart enough to do things differently and build the business to better accommodate the changes.”
If you build it . . .
Generations of Catawba County, North Carolina, residents relied on furniture manufacturers in Hickory and surrounding towns for employment during the industry’s golden era, but as operations moved offshore, the labor pool evaporated. Today as demand for domestic upholstery continues to increase, one group of manufacturers in the area — Century Furniture, Lee Inds., Lexington Home Brands, Sherrill Furniture and Vanguard Furniture — has taken a “if we build it, they will come” approach to training.
 The employment outlook for sewers/upholsterers is very good as aging workers retire. |
Established in January 2014, the Catawba Valley Community College Furniture Academy offers classes that include: furniture fundamentals, pattern making, manual cutting, automated cutting, sewing, introduction to upholstery, spring up, inside upholstery and outside upholstery. The training ranges from eight to 11 months, and the classrooms are set up to replicate a “real life furniture operation,” according to Lori Price, CVCC’s customized training director. Price added that the manufacturers provide equipment and instructors for the training program and that there is currently a waiting list for enrollment.
“We recently received the Governor’s Award for Excellence in Innovative Partnerships,” Price said. “Students in the program are often recruited before they graduate and they can go anywhere. We have some of the furniture industry’s best, most talented people teaching these classes.”
Bondi Coley, Lee’s marketing manager, said that the Furniture Academy provides “a career path for students” at the college.
“An average upholstery position starts around $33,000 and could be in the $47,000-$50,000 range after five years,” Coley said. “Students were once told not to go into manufacturing because the jobs were being lost to overseas production, but Lee has remained a U.S. manufacturer all along and never left our roots. We are trying to educate our future associates to know that crafting furniture is an art, that each piece of upholstery is one of a kind, and that they are instrumental in creating that art.”
At Century Furniture, the average age of factory employees in the upholstery department is 54, according to Kevin Boyle, vice president of manufacturing. Starting salaries can be in the $15 per hour range in the woodworking plant and $17.50 on the upholstery side, a pay rate that the industry should tout, according to Boyle.
“Manufacturing will pay more than service industries,” he said. “The industry needs to emphasize pay.”
Boyle added that while immigrants are a large part of the factory labor pool, an increasing number of young people who have tried college and “didn’t like it” are also taking a look at the industry. He said that the industry has to counter some of the student misperceptions about a factory career, pointing to young people turned off by the “reputation of factories in general and specifically furniture factories that have been through a decade of declining labor.
“The belief is that factories are old, dark, dirty places to work, and that isn’t always true,” Boyle said.
 To date, 100% of the Furniture Academy graduates have been offered employment. |
Garrett Hinshaw, CVCC’s president, said that the academy has been a resounding success, but he adds that there is still much work ahead. Hinshaw said the college is expanding the Furniture Academy from a 10,000-square-foot facility to one that is 30,000 square feet and employing a plant manager from one of the local companies to direct the program. Once the expansion is complete, the enrollment capacity for students will triple.
“One hundred percent of our graduates went straight into the work force, but a key for us is to make sure we keep our eye on the ball,” Hinshaw said. “The Furniture Academy provides a great model of education working with business and industry to develop relevant programs.
“The needs of the employers in our region initially outstretched the capacity of our program,” Hinshaw said. “Employers need people now, and we discovered early on that capacity would be a challenge. With the expansion, our new challenge is to identify instructional personnel. We’re working on things like flexible schedules to accommodate people employed in the industry as instructors, and our vision is to potentially have three shifts of programs available.”
For non-college bound students, the career possibilities within the furniture industry are a strong, long-term and positive option, Hinshaw added.
“The wages the furniture industry pays are well above the living wage standard,” he said. “People entering the industry have the opportunity of establishing strong financial futures.”
