Unilin Struggling to Hire First 100 at North Carol

Thomasville, NC, April 4--It has been more than a year since Unilin Flooring NC LLC gave Davidson County its biggest economic shot-in-the-arm in recent memory, according to the Winston-Salem Journal. The commitment by Unilin, a floor manufacturer based in Belgium, to an $80 million plant in Thomasville and 330 jobs over five years was hailed in March 2004 as a "red-letter day" by city and county officials. Yet Unilin is struggling to hire the first 100 employees for its 600,000-square-foot plant, which will make laminate flooring under the brand name Quick Step. It had hired only 74 by yesterday and is having to cast its recruiting net wider in the Triad. Unilin is offering competitive pay - an average of $16 an hour - that could exceed what many production workers at Dell Inc.'s new plant in Forsyth County are expected to make. Unilin also has a clean working environment and offers the promise of industry stability to a county that has hemorrhaged about 3,200 furniture-manufacturing jobs in the past 41/2 years. However, what's happening at Unilin is what economists call a "skills gap." This is defined as the separation between a basic level of education - high-school diploma or less - held by many potential workers and the skills required to operate the manufacturer's highly automated machinery. The skills gap is hampering Unilin's bid to begin operations by September, which already represents a delay from its initial plans of spring. It also has implications for Dell's ability to hire 700 employees in the first year of operations at its local computer-assembly plant. "The process with this facility is so high tech that many people with some manufacturing skills won't fit our mold for an employee," said Meagan Bisher, a public-relations specialist with Quick Step. "The major reason we chose to locate in Thomasville is because of the manufacturing heritage here, but the manufacturing technology we're using is not only new here, but new to the country as well," Bisher said. There's no shortage of workers in the Triad, given that the unemployment rate for the 10-county combined statistical area rose to 5.8 percent in February from a revised 5.3 percent in January. But employment officials acknowledge that some job-training programs at Davidson County Community College geared toward Unilin take up to two years to complete. "Someone might have a high-school diploma or college degree, and still not have the skills to work the machinery at Unilin," said Antwon Keith, the manager of the N.C. Employment Security Commission's office in Winston-Salem. "For most people, acquiring those skills requires getting additional training." Unilin recently decided to improve its recruitment odds by running ads in movie theaters in Greensboro and High Point, with young people as the target audience. Unilin also is distributing informative mini-CDs about the technology used at the plant. "We have participated in career fairs, placed ads in the newspaper, posted opportunities on Monster.com and at the Employment Security Commission," Bisher said. "We saw cinema advertising as an opportunity to build community awareness in the organization and possible interest in job openings." Phil Simmons, the human-resources manager for the Unilin plant, said that potential candidates shouldn't be intimidated by the thoughts of working with high-tech machinery. "Our hiring processes require an employee with a strong work ethic, good aptitude, some core manufacturing skills, with a knowledge of high-tech systems a real plus," Simmons said. "We will provide the rest through job-training programs." Steve Sink, a technology instructor who is providing job training for Unilin at DCCC, said that "it tears me up to know that these kinds of jobs are out there, and not just with Unilin."