Workforce study underscores woodworking industry’s skills-gap challenges

Benchmark study finds that most North American woodworking managers expect the industry’s already problematic skills gap to widen.

A new study of the U.S. and Canadian woodworking industry conducted by Woodworking Network and the Woodwork Career Alliance of North America reveals that the production worker shortage continues to increase at an alarming rate with no clear end in sight.

Nearly three-quarters (73.8%) of the woodworking representatives participating in the survey indicated it is “very challenging” to hire qualified workers for their manufacturing operations. Making matters even more disconcerting is that 57.9% said it has been “much more challenging” to hire now than three years ago. What’s more, 32.1% said they expect it to be “very challenging” to hire three years from now, with an additional 34% indicating they expect hiring to be somewhat challenging.

The need to hire qualified workers is made all the more necessary by high turnover rates on manufacturing floors. During 2020, 39.3% of the respondents said their operations lost at least one-quarter of their production workforce, including 4.7% who experienced a turnover rate of more than 75%. Conversely, 19.6% said they did not lose any workers in 2020.

Comments made by many of the survey participants highlight their frustration.

  • “No one wants to work.”
  • “We can’t find people with any experience, and when we do hire someone that we are willing to train, they leave after a couple of weeks.”
  • “We are not able to hire qualified operators without stealing them from others. We need to train younger people for those positions.”
  • “To find an employee with actual experience in our industry is rare.”
  • “Applicants with no appropriate skills want more than a beginning wage.”
  • “Even with paid ads, there are no candidates for consideration presently and for the past 12 months.”
  • “We have hired seven men since October 2020. Not one of them has worked out.”
  • “People apply and do not follow up, or they set up and interview and then don’t show up. Very frustrating.”
  • “Three years ago things were tough. Now it’s impossible. I’m not sure how much longer this business can continue.”
  • “We used to get 30 replies to an ad, now we’re lucky if we get three.”
  • “We just need people who want to work and can handle the day-to-day operations it isn’t the qualified part per se it is the drive to come to work and stay in a good position.”
  • “In spite of offering one of the best compensation packages in our area, we continue to increasingly struggle with attracting qualified production team members. It appears that more high school graduates are heading to non-production jobs.”
  • “Most new hires leave in the first 2 weeks. No one stayed more than six weeks.”
  • We had 40% turnover last year. As a 60-year-old company with several 30- to 40-year vets, this was staggering.”
  • “We have a core group that has been with the company for years. It is trying to add to that group which is so hard.”

Impact of COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the industry’s struggles to hire and retain qualified production workers. Nearly two-thirds (65.4%) said COVID-19 had a “significant impact” on their ability to hire qualified production workers. Another 25.2% said they were “unsure” of COVID-19’s impact. Only 9.4% said COVID-19 had no significant impact on hiring personnel.

Many of those in the “significant impact” camp cited government unemployment programs as a major contributor to a dearth of job candidates.

  • “The resulting federal/state unemployment assistance has significantly impacted our ability to get people to walk in the door or call about employment. Any concerns about the spread of the variants have been minimal.”
  • “The Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (which provided $600 a week on top of state unemployment benefits) has caused a significant reduction in the amount of people contacting us or responding to our multiple ads.”
  • “The current situation is that folks are staying home and getting paid by the government under the COVID-19 unemployment guidelines. The government needs to get out of the way! Minimum wage hikes are a job killer for most manufacturing companies.”

Skills Gap Saps the Bottom Line
The ongoing struggle to hire and retain qualified workers to fully man the shop floor has crimped the revenue potential of the vast majority of companies represented in the survey.

Fully 35.6% of the respondents said that their failure to achieve full, stable employment has had a huge impact on their ability to increase revenues. An additional 38.4% indicated that staffing issues have curtailed their revenue potential.

  • “We are busier than ever with increasing sales, but we could take on even more work if we could find the manpower to support it. Right now, everyone is ‘stealing’ help from their competitors which is driving wages up. We need new blood.”
  • “We are stuck at a number that can’t be exceeded without some talent.”
  • “Right now, we’re keeping up, but as backorders increase, we could potentially be turning down orders.”
  • “This is our number one problem.”
  • “We are losing customers due to delivery extended times, and are having to raise prices to offset compensation and incentive programs to attract and retain workers.”

Major Hiring Hurdles
So, why can’t woodworking companies find enough good help?

Asked to choose the single “biggest obstacle to hire new talent” from a list, 29.9% selected “low entry-level wages compared to other skilled trades,” closely followed by 28.0% choosing “declining number of high school woodworking programs.” “Lack of visibility/understanding of woodworking career opportunities” garnered 16.8% of the responses, followed by “low unemployment in your area,” 6.5%. Fewer than 1% chose “negative public image of the woodworking industry.”

Nearly 17% of the survey participants went beyond the list by providing a write-in response, with “all of the above” being a common refrain. Several also pointed to competition with government unemployment compensation programs.

What Help Is Wanted?
The survey asked participants to identify the types of skill sets they are looking for in new hires. Numbers add up to more than 100% due to multiple responses.

Candidates with “some experience to set up and operate traditional woodworking equipment (table saw, jointer, etc.)” are most in-demand, with 70.8% of respondents saying they need people with those types of basic machinery skills. Conversely, 42.5% of the respondents have job openings that require no previous woodworking experience. CNC operators and finishers are equally in demand at 39.6% followed by CAD-CAM users, 30.2%.

“The above positions are all required in any professional cabinet shop that expects to grow and be a successful operation. Under the current conditions in the USA, I think the opportunities for success in this environment are bleak for a developing business owner. Change is needed at the parent-child level as well as across the board at school systems and media. Unless skilled trades are once again respected there will continue to be a decline in the availability of workers in the skilled trades.”

“We have given up hiring for specific machines like moulders. Now we hire machine operators and train them for the specifics once they are here.”

“We would take any willing learner.”

“Hiring people who show up to work five days a week would be 100% win.”

Training Programs in Need
While the vast majority of survey respondents lament that they cannot find qualified production workers, more than two-fifths (40.4%) of them admit their operations do not have any formal woodworking training program. By and far, the most common method used to train employees is some form of one-on-one mentorship.

The vast majority (86.9%) of respondents said they cross-train employees. As one respondent succinctly put it, “We would be sunk without this.”

Training employees to assemble, 79.8%, is by far the most common denominator in the cross-training arena. Also high on the list are bench person, 65.1%; edgebander, 60.5%; panel saw, 54.7%; CNC router, 51.2%; and finishing, 41.9%

WCA Ready to Help
The final section of the survey focused on the types of programs and delivery methods the Woodwork Career Alliance might develop to help the woodworking industry develop and grow a skilled workforce.

For example, precisely half of the respondents said they would be interested in programs designed to teach production employees fundamental woodworking skills, i.e. basic layout and measuring; wood moisture content; solid wood and panel properties and characteristics?

Other areas of interest for training program development include:

  • Teaching production employees basic set-up and operation of classical woodworking equipment, i.e. table saw, jointer, shaper – 36.4%.
  • Teaching production employees CNC operations – 35.2%.
  • Teaching finishing line operators – 35.2%.

In all cases, videos are by far the number one vehicle of choice for delivering training. Also high on the list are training manuals and webinars.

Roughly one-quarter of the respondents said they would like to see training resources offered in Spanish.

Welcome New Members & Sponsors!


The Woodwork Career Alliance of North America is pleased to welcome 20 new EDUcation™ member schools, three new MANufacturing™ members, two new sponsors, and 17 renewing INDustry™ Sponsors.

Thank you for your membership and support!

New EDUcation™ Members
AC Reynolds High School — Ashville, NC
Charles D. Owen High School — Black Mountain, NC
Church Hill Activities & Tutoring — Richmond, VA
Clyde A. Erwin High School — Ashville, NC
Dixon High School — Holly Ridge, SC
Enka High School — Chandler, NC
Fossil Ridge High School — Ft Collins, CO
HatchSpace — Brattleboro, VT
Kewaskum High School — Sheboygan, WI
North Buncombe High School — Weaverville, NC
Serrano High School, Phelan — CA
Western Technical College — Tomah, WI

Find WCA EDUcation™ woodworking programs in your area.

New MANufacturing™ Members
Alabama Sawyer — Birmingham, AL
Gator Millworks — Denham Springs, LA
Mapleleaf Cabinets — West Valley City, UT
Nine Thirteen Interiors — Denver, CO

New INDustry™ Gold Sponsor
Rev-A-Shelf — Louisville, KY

INDustry™ Gold Sponsor Renewals
Friulmac USA
— Hickory, NC
SCM North America – Duluth, GA
ShopBot Tools – Durham, NC

New INDustry™ Silver Sponsor
Colonial Saw
 – Kingston, MA

Daubert Chemical – Chicago, IL
Gemini Coatings – El Reno, OK

INDustry™ Silver Sponsor Renewals
GDP | GUHDO — Marietta, GA
WD Lusk Consulting – Dallas, TX

View all WCA INDustry™ Sponsors & Supporters.

Learn more about the benefits of becoming a WCA sponsor.

Woodwork Career Alliance Introduces Two New Student Credentials

The EDU Core and EDU Green credentials allow serious-minded woodworking students to stand out from the pack.

NELLYSFORD, VA – The Woodwork Career Alliance of North America has created a pair of EDUcation credentials, giving woodworking students new opportunities to be recognized for expanding their skills.

The EDU Core and EDU Green credentials are both exclusively designed for students enrolled in WCA EDUcation member programs. Each of the new credentials builds on the Sawblade Certificate that has long served as the cornerstone for recognizing a student’s ability to safely set up and operate basic woodworking machinery in accordance with the WCA’s Skill Standards.

The new credentials were developed with input from educators and industry professionals to not only reward more serious-minded woodworking students but to make them more workforce-ready.

“Up until now we have not had a way to reward students for going above and beyond the testing requirements of the Sawblade Certificate,” said Greg Larson, vice president of the WCA.  “We’ve seen many Sawblade students earn additional tool assessments who have been unable to qualify for the WCA Green Credential because they could not accumulate enough experience hours to achieve the required 800 hours.

“By only requiring 120 hours of experience, the EDU Core and EDU Green credentials better accommodate most educational woodworking program frameworks, making them more accessible to a broader range of students,” Larson added. “These credentials will also be more valuable for students who choose to pursue woodworking careers and their prospective employers because they are meatier than the Sawblade Certificate.”

Whereas the WCA’s Sawblade Certificate encompasses five basic machinery operations including table saw, jointer, portable sander, and drill press, EDU Core requires students to pass tests on five additional machinery operations. EDU Green requires a student to successfully demonstrate his or her proficiency in at least 15 distinct machine operations.

Learn more about the WCA’s credentialing programs, their benefits, and how they work at woodworkcareer.org.

About the Woodwork Career Alliance
The Woodwork Career Alliance of North America was founded in 2007 as a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation and is governed by a volunteer board of directors. The WCA’s mission is to develop and administer a unified set of Skill Standards for the wood products industry. Since 2011, WCA has developed observable and measurable performance standards and assessments for more than 300 woodworking machine operations. In addition, WCA has issued over 3,500 Passport credentials, a portable, personal permanent record documenting each holder’s record of woodworking skill achievements. More than 140 high schools and post-secondary schools throughout North America are WCA EDUcation™ members and a growing number of woodworking companies have joined the WCA as MANufacturing™ members. To learn more about the WCA and how to get involved with its programs, including sponsorship opportunities, visit WoodworkCareer.org.

Mark Lorge of Fox Valley Technical College with Staci Sievert of Seymour High School

Sievert Steps Up and Seymour’s Tech-Ed Program Takes Off

Congratulations Staci Sievert!

The Woodwork Career Alliance of North America congratulates Staci Sievert for being a winner of the 2021 Prize for Teacher Excellence Award presented by Harbor Freight Tools for Schools (HFTS).

Sievert, a technical education teacher at Seymour High School in Seymour, WI, was one of 18 winners in HTFS’ fifth annual program that honors instructors of U.S. public high school technical education programs. This year, HFTS awarded more than $1 million to the 18 outstanding skilled trades teachers and their programs.

Read how Sievert, a WCA accredited skill evaluator, transitioned from teaching social studies to teaching woodworking, metal machining, and welding with the invaluable assistance of Fox Valley Technical College.

Tom Mueller, principal of Seymour High School, presents Staci Sievert a ceremonial check for being a winner of the 2021 Harbor Freight Tools for Schools Prize for Teaching Excellence. $35,000 of the $50,000 proceeds will support Seymour High’s technical education program. The remaining $15,000 goes to Sievert.

Four years ago, the technical education program at Seymour High School of Seymour, WI, was in turmoil. Unable to hire qualified full-time tech-ed instructors for several years running, the school had no recourse but to employ long-term substitutes to teach woodworking, metalworking, and welding.

Entering Fall 2017, the Seymour High tech-ed program was about to limp through another academic year relying on a temporary instructor. That’s when Staci Sievert, 22 years a social studies teacher, volunteered to make the leap from the classroom to the woodshop.

“I was in principal Tom Mueller’s office when he read an email from the guy he had just hired. ‘I’m going to do something else instead.’ That would have been the fourth year for us to have a long-term sub in the tech-ed position,” she says, adding “I’m from here and I didn’t like seeing the tech-ed program tanking. I knew they couldn’t hire tech-ed instructors but that they could hire a social studies teacher.”

Sievert decided right then and there that enough was enough. She told Mueller, “Shoot, do you think I could learn that? I would do that.” He came back to me later and said, ‘Are you serious because you haven’t failed us yet. I think you can.’”

Soon after that exchange, Sievert was not only offered the tech-ed position, she was asked to start her new teaching assignment right away. She pushed back. “I made it clear that I was willing to do this, but that I would need to take classes before I could teach a topic to an acceptable standard.”

Sievert elaborates. “I was totally up for the challenge and thought it would be interesting, but I was not a tech-ed person. I had never welded before. I had probably cut on a table saw like three times in my life. I once built a chicken coop using a miter saw. That was the extent of my wood manufacturing experience. Basically, zero.”

From Knowing Zero to Tech-Ed Hero
Sievert struck a deal with school administrators. She would continue teaching social studies in Fall 2017 while taking one-on-one woodworking lessons with Mark Lorge, department chair of Fox Valley Technical College’s wood manufacturing program. Fox Valley is an EDUcation member of the Woodwork Career Alliance (WCA).

“As a former social studies teacher, I was starting at ground level. If I was going to be successful learning new skills and furthering the Seymour High School tech-ed program, I needed training and I needed a mentor. My first move was to call Mark Lorge,” Sievert says. “He was willing to create a unique schedule and curriculum for me beyond his normal course load.”

Mark Lorge, lead woodworking instructor at Fox Valley Technical College,  and Staci Sievert pose with a glued-up arch for a cherry table she built under Lorge’s instruction.

“I was allowed to leave school a half-hour early on Tuesdays and Thursdays and bee-lined to the Fox Valley wood manufacturing center in Oshkosh (about 45 minutes away) for my two-hour sessions,” Sievert continues. “I was a huge time suck for Mark. He wasn’t paid any more for teaching me; I wasn’t even part of his regular class. He was willing to do that.”

Sievert began teaching her first two woodworking classes in the spring of 2018, as well as a dual-credit economics course. She also continued her woodworking education at Fox Valley Tech. “I didn’t start teaching classes until 10:30 a.m. because I was being trained by Mark from 7:30 to 9:30 every morning. Then, in the summer, I was full-time with Mark in June and July learning wood manufacturing. Mark taught me wood manufacturing techniques from proper milling procedures to using the shaper to make cabinet doors.”

Lorge’s generous support for Sievert and her program extended beyond the extensive training he provided. Sievert says she submitted a list of equipment needs for the woods program based on recommendations made by Lorge and fellow FVTC instructor Glenn Koerner that the school board approved to the tune of $50,000. After a new shaper was delivered, Lorge donated nearly half a day of his time to set it up.

“Mark has also shared his curriculum with me, some of which I have adapted to my programs,” Sievert says. “My students have gone on field trips to the Fox Valley Tech wood manufacturing center. He was also instrumental in encouraging me to join the Woodwork Career Alliance.”

Sievert was among the first to become an accredited skill evaluator through the WCA’s online ASE training program that debuted last fall. This past spring, she employed the WCA skill standards to train and evaluate 11 students toward earning their WCA Sawblade certificates.

“The WCA process was good for fine-tuning our curriculum and using the WCA as an industry resource is really helpful,” she says.

Sievert took on tech-ed instruction full-time in the fall of 2018. That’s also when she started taking welding at Fox Valley Tech followed later by metalworking classes.

Seymour High School woodworking students

Seymour High School students proudly display the WCA Sawblade Certificates they earned in Spring 2021.

Seymour’s Tech-Ed Program on the Rise
In addition to winning the Harbor Freight Tools for Schools’ 2021 Prize for Teaching Excellence, Sievert’s dedication to going the extra mile to learn new skill sets was recognized by the Fox Cities Chamber of Commerce. She received the Excellence in Career and Technical Education Award during an April 29 virtual ceremony.

In nominating Sievert for the award, Laurie Asher, superintendent of Seymour Community School District, noted that the Seymour High tech-ed program has experienced a 52% enrollment increase in the past five years. “Staci has ‘saved’ our technical education program. She took a program that was struggling and made it one of the premier programs in our district.”

The Seymour High tech-ed program is destined to become even stronger. District voters approved a $6.5 million referendum on April 6 by a more than 2-1 margin. The funding will go toward expanding and updating the tech-ed department.

“We’re going to get metals out of the woodshop,” Sievert says with a laugh. “This is going to allow us to have designated spaces for the different types of manufacturing that we teach and each area will be able to expand,” she says.

No Regrets
Does Sievert miss teaching social studies?

“No, I don’t miss it. I did it a long, long time,” Sievert says. “What I like best about teaching tech-ed is the combination of teaching kids, doing projects, and the community connections that the students make with each other that are so necessary and fruitful. It’s very magical for me.”

WCA Students Win Four First-Place Awards in AWFS Fair Fresh Wood Competition

Students enrolled in school woodworking programs affiliated with the Woodwork Career Alliance of North America made a strong showing at the AWFS Fair in taking home four first-place and two second-place awards in the Fresh Wood Student Design Competition.

The student winners representing WCA EDUcation schools in the biennial competition included:

First Place, Seating – High School
“The Nest”
Mohammed Al-Yaseen, Lincoln East High School, Lincoln, NE
Yaseen’s design also won the People’s Choice Award.

First Place, Case Goods – High School
“Juke Box”
Dakota Kelley, Rolla Technical Institute – Rolla, MO
First Place, Design for Production – High School
“Lumbarest”
Josiah Miles, Lincoln East High School, Lincoln, NEFirst Place, 2021 Special Theme: Remote Woodworking – Post Secondary
“Nested Console Tables”
Jenny Hefferan, Madison College, Madison, WI

Second Place, Design for Production – High School
“Some Assembly Required”
Mohammed Al-Yaseen, Lincoln East High School, Lincoln, NE
Second Place, Seating – High School
“Adirondack Chair”
David Olson,  Saint Croix Central High School, Hammond, WI

First Place winners in each category and at each school level received a $1,000 prize. Second Place winners received $500 and Honorable Mention winners received $250. The Association of Woodworking & Furnishings Suppliers, organizers of the fair, covered project shipping and the majority of the travel and hotel costs for the students and their teachers to attend the show.

The Fresh Wood 2021 judging panel included Harold Greene, Harold Greene Fine Furnishings; Alan Harp, Alan Harp Designs; and Taryn Schwartz, Ballard Design.

This year’s Fresh Wood competition attracted 102 entries from schools in the United States. Click here to see the full list of the winners.