Central Coast manufacturing businesses are thriving and looking to hire

CENTRAL COAST, Calif. - While many companies are struggling right now due to the pandemic, local manufacturing businesses seem to be thriving.

“The manufacturing industry is really vibrant right now, especially as many of these businesses are doing essential work”, said Paula Mathias Fryer, Program Director at SLO Partners.

SLO Partners offers apprenticeship programs in San Luis Obispo County. One of it's programs is a Precision Manufacturing bootcamp, which is garnering a lot of interest.

“People might not be aware, but we have a strong manufacturing presence on the Central Coast with a lot of job opportunities. We had businesses that were keen to hire from us before the bootcamp had even started,” said Mathias Fryer.

The most recent manufacturing bootcamp resulted in 22 graduates ready to enter the workforce

"The Precision Manufacturing Bootcamp opened up a lot of career opportunities for me”, said Ariel Rasgado, Precision Manufacturing Bootcamp Graduate. “I didn't realize how many manufacturing companies were in the area and that they were hiring."

Right now, companies on the central coast are actively looking for candidates ready to jump right in.

“A lot of local businesses in the manufacturing industry are looking to hire so there’s a great need for qualified candidates”, said Daniel Lehmkuhl, Operations Manager at Injectors Direct.

“Thanks to Cal Poly we have an enormous number of qualified college educated engineers, but when you need people that can really work on machines and get their hands dirty to make products, there's a really small number of people who can do that in the County”, said Ryan Dunn, CEO and Co-Founder of Mantis Deposits.

SLO Partners has helped link qualified candidates with local manufacturing companies.

“We’re at a time where manufacturing has never been more important to the United States, so having a workforce that’s ready to come in and start doing things on day one is beyond valuable,” said Ty Safrino, CEO of Trust Automation. “The program really gives people a leg up in this area to get started in manufacturing. We’ve been very successful with the candidates we’ve gotten from SLO Partners. The program takes people with the base skills that are needed for an advanced manufacturing career and then exposes them to the terminology and tools needed for a business like us which is exactly what we need.”  

For information about hiring an apprentice, contact info@SLOParters.org.

To learn more about SLO Partners' Precision Manufacturing bootcamp, click here.