𝐀𝐠𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐈’𝐦 𝐀𝐬𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠: 𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐀𝐫𝐞 𝐀𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐂𝐁 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐠𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐝𝐬?

PCB manufacturing doesn’t have a talent shortage; it has a marketing problem.

Where are all the PCB youngbloods? Why aren’t young men and women entering the industry in the numbers they did in the past?

I asked these questions several years ago, and the situation has improved slightly since. But not enough.

The average age of PCB fabrication workers continues to climb. Industry surveys now peg it somewhere north of 50 years old, and the pipeline of replacements remains dangerously thin.

We’re not just facing a skills gap anymore; we’re staring down a demographic cliff.

I suspect the shrinking and consolidation of the domestic industry, along with the pessimism of many who’ve stayed in it, is at least partly related to the vanishing of younger colleagues.

But I’ve come to realize the problem runs deeper than industry morale or even offshore competition…

Read the rest in the latest issue of Circuits Assembly.