Manufacturing may not be the most buzzworthy sector of the local economy anymore, but it’s still king when it comes to hiring.
That’s one of the takeaways from an employment survey released recently by the Workforce Planning Board of Waterloo Wellington Dufferin.
While the manufacturing sector only accounted for 21 per cent of employers surveyed, it represented 51 per cent of all jobs expected to be created by those employers in the current calendar year.
Following well behind were the agricultural and foresting industry (eight per cent) and public administration (five per cent).
Seventy-eight per cent of responding employers said they hired at least one worker during 2015, while 22 per cent said they did not.
Manufacturing accounted for nearly half of that hiring, with 1,028 of 2,283 new hires being brought on for manufacturing positions.
For positions that were difficult to fill, employers said the main reason was a lack of applicants in general (a factor in 61 per cent of cases), followed by a lack of qualified applicants (45 per cent) and a lack of experienced applicants (40 per cent).
The survey was completed by 184 employers within Waterloo Region, Guelph, Wellington County and Dufferin County, representing more than 13,000 workers.
