Addressing manufacturing staffing struggles is high on leaders' priority lists. New data shows that they are dedicated to closing gaps, rethinking recruiting, and redefining careers in the industry for a new era, hoping that adjusted tactics will lay the foundation for future success.

Key takeaways

Most (84% of) manufacturers agree that the industry's reputation as "low-skill and labor-intensive" puts them at a disadvantage when recruiting tech roles.
Nearly three-quarters (72%) of manufacturers say upskilling their workforce will be very or extremely important over the next three years, with 45% citing internal skill gaps as a top challenge when integrating new systems.
Virtually all IT and OT leaders (99%) say they struggle to fill at least one type of specialized role, with IT and tech specialists (60%), QA (49%), and management (39%) the most cited problem areas.

To uncover other trends taking place across our industry, explore our 2026 State of Manufacturing Report today.

What's making hiring so hard for manufacturers?

The labor market is challenging at present, no matter the field. Changing technologies, demographics, market conditions, and more have put leaders across industries under pressure to adapt their recruiting and retention tactics. Of course, the nuances of each industry's challenges are unique to its operational realities.

For manufacturers, recruiting has emerged as the key labor obstacle in today's market. Perhaps a bit unsurprising, given the headlines about Gen Z's aversion to working on factory lines and in production environments. However, this demographic stereotype doesn't appear to be the holdup.

Despite the ongoing narrative about younger workers' disinterest in factory work, "on-the-floor" jobs do not currently top leaders' lists of challenge areas. About one-third of respondents report struggling to hire engineers (37%), production workers (35%), and logistics workers (32%). Instead, it's the tech-focused roles that are giving today's manufacturers the most trouble.

Nearly all surveyed IT and OT leaders (99%) said they struggle to fill at least one specialized role. More than half (60%) said that IT and tech are among their organizations' most challenging recruitment areas, while just under half (49%) identified QA as particularly challenging.

It'd be easy to chalk up these challenges to the industry's reputation for being "behind" in technical adoption. However, while manufacturing has—historically—been slower to embrace digital tools, that mentality is rapidly changing.

KPMG's 2026 Global Tech Report found that 10% of all businesses surveyed have fully scaled their AI and ML investments, which aligns with the State of Manufacturing report's manufacturing-specific findings. The addition of management roles as the third-most-cited challenge, with 39% of leaders saying filling openings is particularly difficult, points to a different conclusion.

The majority (84%) of industry leaders surveyed attribute the challenges they face in attracting tech workers to the industry's reputation as a "low-skill and labor-intensive" option. Essentially, they are now competing with the rest of the market for the same tech and management talent, but they haven't found a way to communicate the reality of today's industrial operations to the masses.

The industry's reputation as "low-skill" is, in fairness, rooted in a kernel of truth—but it's over a century out of date. When industrial manufacturing began, the level of skill and experience necessary to participate in the production of goods dropped. An individual no longer needed to be a master of the loom to contribute to the creation of well-made fabric, for example.

The challenge is that somewhere along the way, "more accessible" came to mean easy, simple, and unaffected by experience—at least in the public consciousness.

[H2] How are manufacturers hoping to compete?

Manufacturers know they cannot wait passively for public perceptions, even if somewhat misplaced, to change. Leaders in the industry demonstrate a willingness to adapt how they approach candidates, current employees, and the general public. To combat this persistent and pervasive narrative, leaders are embracing a multi-pronged approach.

Their efforts to reinvigorate their own workforces and the reputation of careers in manufacturing cover three distinct pillars of the talent pipeline. More than half say they are engaging in at least one of the following strategies as they seek out the next generation of leaders:

Bolstering internal mentorship programs (57%) to cultivate new skills within their current ranks and aid in retention of high performers
Actively recruiting tenured leaders from other industries (53%) to bring in fresh perspectives and strategies
Targeting emerging talent (52%) and partnering with local institutions (46%) to encourage younger people to explore the field

The emphasis on mentorship and training is no doubt a product of the ongoing push to expand technology throughout operations. The 2026 survey identified the lack of necessary internal skills (45%) as the most common barrier to system implementation. Rebuilding the industry's reputation is a long-term solution; AI expansion is happening now. Leaders rightly see current employees as the most efficient way to bridge talent gaps amid hiring challenges, with 72% saying upskilling will be very or extremely important as digital tools expand.

It's possible that these efforts—where they've already been implemented—are already helping alleviate the pressure. About 2 out of 5 surveyed OT/IT leaders reported that, despite ongoing obstacles, recruitment and retention of tech specialists have gotten easier over the past year.

Globally, one-third (33%) said they had a "somewhat" easier time compared to the prior year, while 6% reported things had gotten "significantly" easier and 30% reported that their experience was "about the same." In the US, leaders report even more positive progress, with 46% saying that hiring in these roles has gotten easier year over year.

What does tomorrow's workforce look like?

The data reveals quite a bit about industry leaders' vision for tomorrow's workforce and where labor strategies are heading. For the majority, upskilling is non-negotiable, which is as much a statement about closing today's gaps as it is about their understanding of what's next.

They see tomorrow's workforce as being built with intention and from the ground up, and they see that work as starting now. Further, they see tomorrow's workforce as still profoundly human, despite enthusiasm for and investments in automation.

Technology is reshaping what jobs require, but leaders don't yet see it as a direct replacement for people. Investing in expanded talent pools, upskilling, mentorship, and reputation change is not the work of an industry that imagines a fully automated future.

Instead, the data speaks to a future where human expertise and judgment take top billing, with precise, efficient, and reliable digital tools serving as accelerators, support tools, and stress-testers. At present, manufacturers see quality control (50%), IT operations (46%), and supply chain management (45%) as top candidates for continued automation.

That isn't translating into reduced hiring pressure; quite the opposite. QA and IT are among the hardest roles to fill because technical proficiency is now a prerequisite. AI is increasing the value of expertise rather than eroding it, and it reaffirms that the rebranding leaders desire is rooted in a genuine belief in the message. Expertise matters, and that won't change as technology matures and scales.

Conclusion

Manufacturing's labor challenge is the result of complex, interconnected pressures that continue to shape who applies, who gets hired, and where technology fits. Unsurprisingly, industry leaders are ready to change the script about the industry's workers and how production happens. What is surprising is that workers are ready, too.

In many ways, the unique labor dynamics of the moment are a sign that manufacturing's more deliberate approach to transformation has paid off. The wait-and-see strategy has cultivated a workforce that's eager for change, leaders with realistic expectations, and an industry with motivation to invest in talent and technology. Now, they just need to get to work.

To learn more about Parsec's 2026 survey, read the full report.