Workforce Impact

The American Bakers Association (ABA) and the American Society of Baking (ASB) commissioned the Workforce Gap in U.S. Commercial Baking: Trends, Challenges and Solutions study 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

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.

Critical Workforce Needs

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.

Of additional concern, a 2014 report by Deloitte states that ‘traditional approaches’ for addressing employee shortage are not as effective as they used to be, highlighting the need for new strategies.

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

Entire 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.

Baking Workforce Skills Gap Downloads

Workforce Skills Gap Final Report

1.37 MB

Bakery Workforce Case Studies

10.3 MB

Best Practices to Fill the Workforce Gap in the Baking Industry

539.54 KB

Key Stats from 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

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