birmingham.bizjournals.com/birmingham/othercities/pitts -
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Published on: 11/21/2008
Last Visited: 11/24/2008
Jim Boyle, owner of Freeport-based Boyle Inc., a precision tool and die operation, lost a valuable machinist to Westinghouse supplier Curtiss-Wright Electro-Mechanical Corp. last summer.
He is nervous when he walks into his shop in the morning, he said, wondering if another one of his specialists will announce that a better offer has been made elsewhere.
"We just can't offer the same amount of money," he said of the larger competition.
Boyle said entry-level, skilled workers in the manufacturing industry can earn between $18 and $25 per hour.
Those workers can sometimes double their salary by switching to employers such as Curtiss-Wright or Westinghouse, Boyle said.
With a dearth of young people entering the manufacturing trade, Boyle is reaching out to veterans coming back from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and to women, who are typically underappreciated in the field, he said.
His company, 24-strong just two years ago, now employs 16 workers and is advertising to fill four vacancies.
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