Workforce Impact

The American Bakers Association (ABA) and the American Society of Baking (ASB) commissioned the Workforce Gap in U.S. Commercial Baking studies to gain an understanding of the current and expected skills gap in the industry, and most importantly, what can be done to fill it.

Workforce Resources

2021 Study Assesses Challenges and Best Practices for Recruitment

The ABA and American Society of Baking (ASB) joint study, 2021 Workforce Gap in U.S. Commercial Baking: Recruitment Trends & Best Practices was conducted in October 2021 by Cypress Research. The study assesses challenges and best practices for workforce recruitment in the U.S. commercial baking industry.

An update to 2016’s, Workforce Gap Study, the 2021 findings help baking employers better understand the current recruitment trends for hourly, skilled production employees and how they have changed in the past five years. The study also explores new in-depth industry data on the recruitment of drivers and hourly, unskilled production employees.

Access the 2021 Workforce Study

2021 Study Key Findings

2021 Workforce Recruitment Key Findings (179.51 KB)

179.51 KB

2016 Study Identifying Trends, Challenges, and Solutions

The ASB/ABA study found that the greatest current workforce gap among U.S. commercial bakers is among hourly maintenance and engineering positions, with 78 percent reporting a ‘high’ or ‘severe’ shortage, and will remain at this level unless programs are adopted to help close this gap.

Companies project that hourly machine operators’ positions, unskilled production positions, and salaried scientist and research and development positions will skyrocket in the next 10 years.

ABA and ASB believe this research provides direction on how individual companies can make progress in filling the workforce skills gap.

2016 skills gap study

Recruitment

Branding is a top action item stemming from the study. Per the data collected, 95 percent of the industry has moderate to severe challenges in making bakery manufacturing appealing to qualified candidates, and 89 percent struggle to make qualified candidates aware of production employment opportunities in the baking industry.

Training

Lack of formal training programs is a major concern for the baking industry.

ABA's training and professional development programs can help Members meet training needs.

Retention

Retention is a major issue for the baking industry. Ninety percent of companies reported that difficult working hours and shifts created a challenge in retaining employees. Other top retention challenges include understaffing the production floor (84%) and undertrained first-line supervision (83%). Eight in ten companies reported retention issues due to the challenging manufacturing environment and first-year retention issues.

2016 Baking Workforce Skills Gap Downloads

Workforce Skills Gap Final Report (1.37 MB)

1.37 MB

Bakery Workforce Case Studies (10.3 MB)

10.3 MB

Best Practices to Fill the Workforce Gap in the Baking Industry (539.54 KB)

539.54 KB

Key Stats from 2016 Baking Workforce Skills Gap Study

78%

Baking companies with shortage of engineering/maintenance employees

60%

Increase in skilled positions from 2011-2016

58%

Increased use automation/robotics from 2011-2016, opening need for highly skills employees

19%

Anticipated rise in shortages among hourly machine operator and unskilled production positions by 2025

2016 - The Workforce Gap in U.S. Commercial Baking: Trends, Challenges and Solutions

Bakery Workforce Development Resources

The future of the wholesale baking industry is dependent upon attracting, training, and retaining highly skilled talent at all levels of the workforce. Our exclusive professional development programs are dedicated to helping Member companies promote and grow the industry's most important ingredient: our workforce.

Workforce Resources