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Artificial intelligence, the manufacturing labor shortage, training programs and more—all were covered in a recent episode of the “Workforce 4.0” podcast, featuring Manufacturing Institute President and Executive Director Carolyn Lee.

What’s going on: Among the first topics addressed by Lee last week when she chatted with podcast host Ann Wyatt for the episode “Manufacturing Hiring Trends: And What Employers Need To Know In 2026” was the still-persistent concern that AI will “take” jobs from human workers.

• “[W]hen you ask the average manufacturer, especially a large manufacturer, they would say they’ve been working with robotics and automation for many years now,” Lee told Wyatt. “This is not new. … Large language models and generative AI [are] new … but … manufacturers have [always] been at the forefront of technology evolution and innovation, and it has not eliminated all people. I see people wherever I go.”
• In fact, the more widespread automation and other AI applications have become, the more appealing some of the work has become. Lee told the story of a manufacturing worker nearing retirement age who told her, “I’ve been in this sector for 40 years. I’m 65. I want to stay longer because the job is safer. It’s interesting, I’m learning more in the last five years than I’ve learned my entire previous career, and I’m excited for what’s to come.”
• Manufacturers just need to train their workforces on the technology so their teams “are able to evolve” with it.

Humans in demand: Human workers are still very much in demand. In fact, the manufacturing industry still has a dearth of about 400,000 workers—a shortfall that, if current trends continue, will grow to 1.9 million by 2033, Lee said, citing data from a joint MI–Deloitte 2024  report.

• “When we do this updated paper, which will be in ’27, I think it will show a much bigger number because our retirements will have continued … [and] all this domestic investment is going to create new jobs,” she went on. That, coupled with the advancement of AI, will make workforce training—the kind the MI does—and worker upskilling even more important.

FAME-ously crucial: Lee and Wyatt discussed the Federation for Advanced Manufacturing Education (FAME), a national apprenticeship-style training program started in 2010 by Toyota and now run entirely by the MI.

• FAME now has “over 42 chapters in 17 states, training thousands of students in maintenance for an [Advanced Manufacturing Technician] degree,” according to Lee.
• “It is really an employer-led model where the employers are driving that commitment, driving the training, working in concert with community colleges and then local business entities to help support that network,” she said. “And then you’re growing the pool of talent and you’re building practices to solve this together so that we’re not fighting over a shrinking pool; we’re actually growing that pool.”