Seconded. Hiring Machinists at work we went through a few ex cons and wound up hiring one for a few years which turned out to be a nightmare. Now we have a hippy in a band who makes inappropriate comments. You cant win.
At that point does it make sense to get young and underqualified individuals and train them up yourself? I'm in electrical engineering and basically got into the field in a way that was similar to an apprenticeship, albeit mostly because I have ADHD bad enough that university was out of reach.
Not when you have work backing up and no one in the building qualified to train them. We outsourced a bunch of work to outside shops to make deadlines but it's so much harder. The machinist might have to work with the engineer on issues and have access to resources that are local to our building. And some of the outside shops are even questionable - A machinist once asked me how I arrived at the dimensions of an o-ring groove because he forgot basic math. Now a tool that can be made same day turns into a week long process.
Sad part is we had a young guy here in his 20's who was a real crackerjack: machinist, knew basic electric, could use a computer and was even picking up programming. He had a kid, found a good paying government job then up and left. I'd call him a unicorn.
