75%. That’s how much job applications at St. Louis manufacturers have dropped since 2021.

Not a slow decline. A collapse.

And the pipeline that’s supposed to replenish that supply? Technical school enrollments across the region are down 50% on average. The programs manufacturers have depended on for decades are operating at half capacity.

These numbers didn’t come from a national report or an industry association. They came from manufacturers in this city, sharing their actual data at a recent Conflux event. These aren’t projections. This is what’s happening right now, on the floor, in the hiring process, in the offers that aren’t getting accepted.

The competition changed. Most manufacturers haven’t caught up.

Boeing is hiring entry-level workers at $30 an hour. Bank of America tellers start at $25, with climate control and no physical wear. One local manufacturer sent their Workforce Development Manager out with two full scholarships to offer. He came back with all the money. Every incoming student was already fully funded, with companies stacking perks on top.

The candidates exist. They’re just already gone before most manufacturers show up.

The pipeline isn’t thin. It’s broken at the source.

For a generation, students were told that trade school was the backup plan. College was the goal. That message landed, and enrollment numbers are the receipt. The deeper problem now isn’t just competition for workers, it’s that many young people never considered manufacturing as an option at all.

“Kids want to be what they see,” one manufacturer said. “If they don’t know manufacturing exists, they can’t choose it.”

The manufacturers who are ahead started earlier than you’d expect.

One local aerospace company stopped waiting for the market to fix itself. They built a 28-person apprenticeship program and now engage middle schoolers: not to hire them, but to plant a seed before someone else plants a different one. By the time a candidate is 18, their path is already chosen.

That’s the new math. That’s the new reality. And that is the conversation we’re building upon at the 2026 Workforce Development Summit on April 21st.

If these numbers describe your current reality but you want a different future, you should be in the room with other like-minded manufacturing, academic, and civic leaders working together to do just that.

Like the Industrial Readiness Summitin the fall, this event will sell out, so reserve your seat today and be a part of the change our region so desperately needs.