Experience
The region offers a highly skilled and diversified workforce with core strength in manufacturing, supply chain logistics, and value-added distribution. Our manufacturing and distribution workforce and experience have resulted in high productivity, high levels of safety, and high quality of work.
Many of St. Louis’ industrial firms choose the St. Louis region to manufacture and distribute their product across the world via the region’s high quality infrastructure and flexible modal network of road, rail, air, water, and pipeline. For these firms, St. Louis workers’ deep heritage and experience in moving product is advantageous to the seamless flow and integration of their global supply chain.
With respect to distribution and transportation/logistics workforce, the St. Louis area has a well-educated and experienced workforce that provides added value to warehousing, distribution, and e-commerce companies, all at a competitive price. St. Louis’ robust corporate sector in the distribution industry includes companies such as Walgreens, Target.com, Hershey, Whirlpool, and Unilever among others. The location of major operations of these companies demonstrates the versatility of logistics workers in St. Louis and how workers are effective at efficiently moving goods over a variety of modes of transportation.
There are currently 6,389 firms operating wholesale trade, transportation, and warehousing operations in the St. Louis area. (BLS Reports, 2014)
For both manufacturing and distribution, the St. Louis region offers a highly trained and economically competitive workforce compared to its peer cities. Listed below is a chart showing the average wages of major manufacturing and distribution related workers and the number of workers employed in key occupations in these fields.
*INSERT CHART SHOWING AVERAGE MANUFACTURING WAGES*
Manufacturing Workforce
The St. Louis area has a large and experienced manufacturing and distribution workforce due to a vibrant industrial climate, an abundance of education and training opportunities, and superior infrastructure/modal flexibility.
Amongst its peer cities, the St. Louis region has the largest number of workers employed in manufacturing, and its manufacturing employment as a share of total nonfarm employment is similar or greater than most of its peer cities.
*INSERT CHART W/ PEER CITY MANUFACTURING WORKFORCE TOTALS*
Manufacturers in the St. Louis region are plentiful, diversified, and span a wide range of industries. Some of St. Louis’ major manufacturing sub-clusters include breweries and distilleries, ordnance ammunition, aircraft parts and assembly, soaps and cleaning compounds, automotive, fuel, and organic chemicals.
According to a 2014 BLS survey, there are more than 2,655 manufacturing firms in the St. Louis region. Major players in our strategic manufacturing sub-clusters include Anheuser-Busch, Dial Corporation, Procter & Gamble, Conoco-Phillips, Boeing, Mallinckrodt, and many others. The long history of these companies operating within the St. Louis region is an indication of the area’s manufacturing expertise, having utilized the talent of the regional workforce to successfully produce goods and grow their businesses.
St. Louis’ workforce is highly effective at implementing high tech manufacturing processes and value-added goods production. The workforce of St. Louis is familiar and well versed in production to a degree that many other regions cannot compete with. We are experienced working within the complexity of FDA regulated facilities, facilities that require a high level of safety training and precaution (such as those that produce ammunition or mix/blend chemicals), and in production processes with a high level of technical skill in machining, welding and electronic circuitry. The region has invested in and profited from complicated and high value-add manufacturing for hundreds of years and will continue to do so successfully.