“Kentucky’s transportation network can move products easily and efficiently by air, rail, road and water to all points globally,” Ditto explained. “The state is home to large logistical operations at the UPS Worldport in Louisville (SDF) and a DHL hub at CVG, and FedEx has large trucking hubs in Kentucky. Additionally, Amazon Prime’s $1.5 billion investment in an air hub at CVG will add to that airport’s capabilities.” IMPLICATIONS FOR EDUCATION AND WORKFORCE Understanding why aerospace companies thrive in Kentucky and then seeking to promote and strengthen those factors is vital, Ditto explained. About 8,000 people (of the 17,500 total) are directly involved in aerospace jobs, whose economic activity in turn generates many additional jobs regionally, noted Ditto. The aerospace products sector component accounts for 41.1 percent of those jobs, with aviation services making up the balance. The majority of these jobs are in Northern Kentucky, Lexington and Louisville. Northern Kentucky experienced job losses in this cluster during the last 10 plus years, but that the trend is now reversed. The total earnings per worker (wages and benefits) in 2016 were $89,647 for aerospace and $81,491 for aviation. A particularly large concentration of current workers are 45 to 64-year-olds, so a significant percentage of them may be aging out of the workforce over the next 10 to15 years. The study benchmarks Kentucky against six states, due in part to their ranking in employment and/or research and development (R&D): Alabama, Arizona, Indiana, Kansas, Ohio and Washington. Kentucky’s competitiveness is a bit of a mixed bag. In Kentucky, 82% of adults have a high school diploma or less, which is lower than the competing states. Although the four-year adjusted cohort graduation rate (the rate at which people complete college in four years) is a favorable 86.5%, the number of post-secondary degrees lags behind most of the competing states—indicating an increased need for emphasis on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) careers in the schools. However, Kentucky has the most STEM undergraduate certificates of all competitor states. Kentucky’s apprenticeship programs are robust, but in the middle of the seven-state pack. The U.S. Department of Labor states the average salary of registered apprentices is $15 an hour. “Recruiting for manufacturing careers is a challenge, because many people have misconceptions,” commented Ditto. One is that factories are dark and dirty places. Not true. Today’s manufacturing, especially in aerospace, is clean and high-tech. Another common misconception is that if you don’t go to college, you’re at a disadvantage. Also not true.
Dr. Ben Malphrus, a professor at Morehead State University, stands with their satellite dish which communicates with NASA vehicles and other satellites in space. WINTER 2018 | VOLUME 37 NUMBER 1
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