By: SCOTT WHIPPLE , Herald staff
NEW BRITAIN - Thirty area manufacturers met Tuesday at Okay Industries to tackle a growing problem in their industry: How to find skilled workers to replace retiring baby boomers. Owners and executives of city businesses brainstormed possible solutions to employment problems that threaten to cripple the city's economy in the next decade. Manufacturers agreed that the shrinking labor pool can be explained by certain misconceptions:
- Most people still tend to view the factory floor as dirty, noisy and unsafe;
- that jobs are repetitive, boring and low paid,
- and that manufacturing in Connecticut is moribund.