Recouping Performance in a Dynamic Material Handling Labor Market
Being a proud North & South Carolina company, we have a vested interest in both states’ economic conditions, especially in the manufacturing and construction markets that we directly serve. Both states have come a long way in expanding development in these industries, and we enjoy seeing our customers benefit from the states’ efforts. Still, the Carolinas aren’t immune to the labor challenges plaguing the manufacturing sector across the nation, which present a few specific implications and potential opportunities for material handling businesses. In short, warehouse equipment has a growing role to play in offsetting labor market turmoil, helping businesses reclaim lost performance while reducing pressure on headcount.
Current Key Labor Concerns in Distribution, Manufacturing and Warehousing
At the warehouse floor level where labor constraints are most strongly felt, supply chain businesses rely on three broad categories of labor: management & supervision, skilled staff, and unskilled staff. All three categories are subject to current labor issues, though the problems are most evident in the skilled and unskilled staff roles due to their larger volumes. Overall, today’s most prevalent labor concerns include:
- Workforce Pool Shrinkage – the workforce population available to manufacturing and warehousing businesses continues to shrink, a result of declining interest in industrial jobs and slow-growth wage trends.
- Higher Turnover – in recent years, warehouse staff turnover has steadily risen, attributed to high wage competition between companies coupled with degrading employee perception of manufacturing roles.
- Skill Gap – skilled and unskilled warehouse roles alike are increasingly difficult to place today, as both require some level of technical aptitude given the industry’s adoption of technology and automated machinery.
- Aging Workforce – in North Carolina alone, manufacturing has hit its all-time highest proportion of age 55+ workers, which echoes the nationwide threat of losing critical operational capacity as these workers retire.
- Shrinking Entering Cohorts – compounding the problem of an aging workforce, young workers entering the manufacturing job market are at record low proportions, favoring other industries and seeking higher wages.
- Labor Reliability – another way that many of the above issues manifest is in terms of labor reliability, a growing problem of absenteeism and low performance (via skill gaps) that directly impacts productivity.
Before we go on, we need to make one point abundantly clear: in no way are we placing any type of blame or responsibility on any single entity in the employee-employer relationship. We are certainly not blaming employees. Too often, discussions about labor challenges tend to read as if favoring one side or the other. While the above outcomes are widely recognized as current labor market problems, their causes are too complex to pin on any one source.
In our opinion, today’s labor market struggles are borne from many socioeconomic, demographic, political, and commercial factors, which we’ll leave to the academics and policy makers to address. Instead, we’d like to focus on what we can do to help alleviate these concerns through advanced warehouse equipment solutions, so let’s jump into that next.
Overcoming Labor Challenges with Advanced Equipment Solutions
What do the above labor market challenges mean for warehouse operations? Three things: lower productivity, higher costs, and lower margins. With fewer personnel available to fill necessary roles at either the staff or supervisory level, material handling organizations will have an increasingly difficult time fulfilling customer expectations in a profitable manner.
In many ways, the best short-term solution is to tap into advanced warehouse equipment options that can offset unfilled staff roles as well as to make filled roles more effective. In other words, warehouse equipment helps you do more with less. As you start to deploy equipment solutions, employees will benefit, which in turn fosters long-term success through higher retention and skill development.
Instead of jumping straight to equipment recommendations, we suggest that businesses evaluate and select equipment based on features that directly tie to employee productivity and satisfaction.
As you go through this list of features, keep a broad mental image of advanced technologies in mind: forklifts, stock chasers, aerial lifts, packaging machinery, sorting and transport conveyors, automatic elevators, telematic platforms, warehouse management software, automated storage and retrieval systems, engineered pallet racking, and so on.
- Easier Operability – when selecting warehouse equipment, strive to find the easiest-to-operate options possible. Lightweight, nimble, responsive, intuitive equipment will reduce an operator’s burden in carrying out their work, which in turn amplifies their attitude and commitment to the organization.
- Extreme Reliability – similarly, seek out equipment that is known to be extremely reliable based on customer reviews, references, and brand reputation. Maximum reliability directly feeds into max productivity. In addition, the more that operators trust their equipment, the more they’ll want to work with it every day.
- Lower Maintenance – equipment specifically designed for lower maintenance is a huge help for labor constrained businesses, able to spend more time running and less time out of service. Look for “severe duty cycle” ratings which feature larger batteries, self-tuning diagnostics, and extended-life wear parts.
- Enhanced Ergonomics – equipment with prominent ergonomic features go a long way in retaining and attracting workers, as well as supporting longer operating schedules before fatigue sets in. EG: vibration, noise, and shock isolation; temperature-controlled cabs; and oversized interfaces and controls.
- Automated Equipment – speaking specifically to skill gap and younger workforce development, emerging cohorts display heavy interest in technologically-advanced roles that minimize manual labor and provide skill training on the job – both of which are achieved through fully- and semi-automated warehouse equipment.
- Modularity / Cross-Functionality – returning to the concept of doing more with less, purchasing equipment that can perform multiple tasks and fill disparate functions provides a business with more flexibility to work around labor constraints than buying traditional single-task equipment.
A Footnote on Carolinas’ Labor Development Support Options
As an aside, we’d like to spread word about the great work that the North Carolina Department of Commerce is doing through their First in Talent strategic economic development plan. This ambitious 5-year plan lays out several goals focusing on nurturing and strengthening our local workforce, which you can read about here, and also see this year’s progress updates here. With the plan soon to be refreshed in 2026-2027, there are a host of grants, training, job placement, and other employer support programs that businesses can tap into. Separately, South Carolina has several different programs that together offer similar workforce development scopes: ReadySC (a technical college training partnership), RetrainSC (a technical college upskilling partnership), and state Workforce Development Services (a Dept. of Commerce program).