High-tech skills seen as key to manufacturing jobs

High-tech skills will help define Long Island's manufacturing job market of the future.

Good-paying jobs in high technology and green industry companies will help the region retain its economic vibrancy, according to local economists and business leaders in more than a dozen interviews.

They believe the Island has an edge over other regions competing for new technology and green businesses. Experience in the defense industry and its major research facilities, they say, could nourish tech-driven industries such as alternative energy sources. But as the number of manufacturing jobs continues to decline, Long Island's high-tech aspirations are still years away.

Still, most local economists and business leaders are optimistic. "We remain competitive for manufacturing in which there is a high-technology component," said Pearl Kamer, chief economist for the Long Island Association.

For example, workers with expertise in instrumentation and electronic communications, carry-overs from the aerospace industry, could aid in the design, manufacturing and maintenance of charging stations for electric cars, she said. Other skilled tech jobs include making parts for aerospace, computer and electronics companies, the experts said.

Computer software engineers, high-end machinists and even welders will find continued demand, the result of turnover from baby boomer retirements and the increasing specialization of manufacturing tasks, according to the New York State Labor Department's principal economist, Gary Huth.

Manufacturing accounted for 136,100 Long Island jobs in 1990, representing more than 12 percent of the workforce. Today, it has about 81,000 jobs, for 6.1 percent of the workforce, and those figures are forecast to drop to 71,000 and 4.6 percent by 2035, according to the Long Island Regional Planning Council.

Beyond the numbers

But the sector's outlook may be brighter than the numbers suggest. "It remains a driving dynamic in the Long Island economy that is kind of at risk because of its low visibility," Huth said, explaining that "there is more shrinkage because you are producing more output with fewer people." The numbers "kind of exaggerate . . . and they also mask what the dynamic really is."

Manufacturing, for example, still has some of the Island's best-paying jobs. Annual wages average $57,766, well above the $48,745 private-sector average, and well above the retail sector's $29,816, according to state Labor Department data.

"Some people do very well in the manufacturing sector if they have the skills in demand," Kamer said.

One advantage Long Island has is that it is home to major research institutions that are increasingly working to grow jobs by advancing fledgling technologies such as energy and biotech from the lab to the marketplace.

The future green economy - built around replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy - will include job titles that may not even exist yet, experts said. Beyond the manufacturing jobs it could bring, it would also call for increased demand for current occupations such as computer software engineers and boiler operators, and require additional training for positions such as building inspectors and air-conditioning installers, according to federal labor officials.

Through 2038, the greater New York area including Long Island is poised to lead the nation in green job creation, adding 198,000 new jobs, according to Global Insight, a research firm. That compares to 25,000 jobs that existed in 2006.

The Long Island Association projected that demand would grow in a green economy for manufacturing and construction jobs that employed nearly 31,000 Long Islanders in 2009 - earning between $39,208 and $96,304.

One sector likely to grow is professional, technical and scientific services, according to a report released last month by the Association. In 2009, there were nearly 8,200 Long Islanders working in this sector, which includes engineers and environmental consultants, according to the report. Average annual salaries ranged from $44,564 to $76,960.

From solar, bright spots

There has already been a boom in solar installation specialists. The Long Island Power Authority tracked only two residential and commercial solar power systems installed on the Island in 2000, but the number soared to 1,640 in 2008. Last year, 2,423 systems were put up, and 3,073 were installed in just the first six months of this year.

"We need people doing the design, the dramatic retrofitting," said Gregory DeFreitas, an economics professor at Hofstra University, who said retrofitting older homes into more energy-efficient buildings could create thousands of jobs that would include electricians and construction workers.

Also included would be "higher-end types of jobs, knowledge workers, science and engineering, business leadership, executive talent," said Walter Copan, managing director of Brookhaven National Laboratory's Office of Technology Commercialization and Partnerships.

As the head of the Hauppauge Industrial Association's manufacturing committee, Anne Shybunko-Moore, the president of GSE Dynamics Inc., a Hauppauge manufacturer of military parts, is taking on the task of increasing the visibility of Long Island's manufacturing sector, which has nearly 3,500 companies, and to counter its image as an insignificant slice of the economy.

"There needs to be a message that manufacturing is still strong in terms of our contribution to the economy," she said.