{"id":17,"date":"2013-06-18T10:09:00","date_gmt":"2013-06-18T02:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/hydraulicsupermarket.com\/blog\/uncategorized\/the-unfolding-crisis-in-the-hydraulics-biz\/"},"modified":"2022-04-24T15:31:42","modified_gmt":"2022-04-24T07:31:42","slug":"the-unfolding-crisis-in-the-hydraulics-biz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hydraulicsupermarket.com\/blog\/all\/the-unfolding-crisis-in-the-hydraulics-biz\/","title":{"rendered":"The Unfolding Crisis in the Hydraulics Biz"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-154 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hydraulicsupermarket.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/crisis.jpg\" alt=\"crisis\" width=\"292\" height=\"150\" \/>If you so much as dabble in hydraulics, read on because I think you&#8217;ll find what follows interesting. And for some, it&#8217;s potentially life-changing.<\/p>\n<p>The information I&#8217;m about to reveal comes from a document prepared by the Fluid Power Education Foundation (FPEF) and the International Fluid Power Society (IFPS).<\/p>\n<p>It explains their Fluid Power Education Initiative. And the preamble makes for fascinating reading:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The challenge to find qualified, well-prepared men and women to fill [hydraulics industry] positions is at <b>crisis<\/b> level.&#8221; (bolding mine)<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The opportunities for engineers, technicians, mechanics, sales and marketing personnel, and management are endless:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>According to a recent Deloitte report, approximately 600,000 advanced manufacturing jobs are going unfilled in the U.S.<\/li>\n<li>The bureau of labor statistics indicates that the number of Science, Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) occupations will increase by 22% through 2014.<\/li>\n<li>The number of STEM jobs is second only to health care in the U.S.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>After outlining the opportunity, the FPEF\/IFPS then define the problem this way:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The problem is, fluid power is a well-kept secret to many as a career opportunity and largely ignored in the education system.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The above statement is backed-up with further statistics, which for brevity, I won&#8217;t cite here. And compounding the problem, is the fact that those of us already in the industry are nearing our &#8216;use-by&#8217; date:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;To add to the crisis, the current workforce is rapidly maturing. A recent survey conducted by the International Fluid Power Society (IFPS) shows that over 63% of its members are over the age of 45 and 30% are over 55.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Without a solid pipeline of experienced, certified professionals, the attrition levels will rapidly outpace the supply of new qualified workers to fill the void.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The FPEF\/IFPS document uses the word &#8216;crisis&#8217; no less than 3 times. The Chinese word for crisis is comprised of two characters. One means danger. The other means opportunity.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_154\" style=\"width: 302px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-154\" class=\"size-full wp-image-154\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hydraulicsupermarket.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/crisis.jpg\" alt=\"crisis\" width=\"292\" height=\"150\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-154\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">&#8216;Crisis&#8217; in Chinese: danger and opportunity<\/p><\/div>\n<p>And since this crisis is not confined to the U.S., it means the OPPORTUNITY is universal.<\/p>\n<p>To pursue hydraulics as a specialization that is.<\/p>\n<p>Wherever you are.<\/p>\n<p>You may be aware I was unemployed, broke and circling the drain when I stumbled into the hydraulics biz. For me, it was a happy accident. And I&#8217;ve never looked back.<\/p>\n<p>The point being, YOU can be <b>intentional<\/b> about this. If you&#8217;ve dabbled in hydraulics or have any kind of interest in it, now is a <b>great<\/b> time to get serious and jump in with both feet.<\/p>\n<p>The thing is, it&#8217;s never really too late to start.<\/p>\n<p>But you gotta start.<\/p>\n<p>So if you DO want to be a player, take some sort of action today.<\/p>\n<p>Join the Fluid Power Society. Or join <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hydraulicsupermarket.com\/pro-club.html\">Hydraulics Pro Club<\/a>. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hydraulicsupermarket.com\/books.html\">Get a book<\/a>. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hydraulicsupermarket.com\/training.html\">Take a course<\/a>. Mine or somebody elses. Hydraulics is a big church. And it doesn&#8217;t really matter to me whether you&#8217;re a member of my parish or not.<\/p>\n<p>The main thing is you jump on this wave now, and ride it for all it&#8217;s worth. He who dares wins. And if you&#8217;re wondering where to start, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hydraulicsupermarket.com\/blog\/smr\/\"><strong>get &#8220;Six Costly Mistakes Most Hydraulics Users Make&#8230; And How You Can Avoid Them!&#8221; available for FREE download here<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you so much as dabble in hydraulics, read on because I think you&#8217;ll find what follows interesting. And for some, it&#8217;s potentially life-changing. The information I&#8217;m about to reveal comes from a document prepared by the Fluid Power Education &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hydraulicsupermarket.com\/blog\/all\/the-unfolding-crisis-in-the-hydraulics-biz\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hydraulicsupermarket.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hydraulicsupermarket.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hydraulicsupermarket.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hydraulicsupermarket.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hydraulicsupermarket.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.hydraulicsupermarket.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2376,"href":"https:\/\/www.hydraulicsupermarket.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17\/revisions\/2376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hydraulicsupermarket.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hydraulicsupermarket.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hydraulicsupermarket.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}