[1/5] A worker cuts a cast at Mitchell Aerospace, Inc., a manufacturer of light alloy sand castings for the aerospace industry, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada September 9, 2022. REUTERS/Christinne Muschi
MONTREAL/CHICAGO, Sept 27 (Reuters) - Canada's Mitchell Aerospace has a booming business - and a shop-floor shortfall that is reverberating from Boeing (BA.N) to Airbus (AIR.PA). Brass Pipe Fittings
The Montreal-based supplier of aircraft parts has an order backlog from clients such as Raytheon Technologies (RTX.N), as aircraft makers push to ramp up output after a two-year slump.
Like other companies that supply precision cast parts for everything from landing gear to engine components, Mitchell Aerospace is facing a labor shortage expected to hobble plane production through 2023.
"It's just a hurricane in the plant," said company President Guillermo Alonso. "There's just no time. It's just produce, produce, produce and find ways to improve your productivity."
A slowing global economy has started to unwind some supply chain shortages that hit manufacturers and contributed to inflation. Demand for shipping and airfreight have softened, chip sales are slowing and used car prices in the United States are falling.
But aircraft parts makers are still reeling from deep job cuts undertaken when planes were grounded during the pandemic, a sign of how uneven the supply chain crisis remains.
In the United States, aerospace employment is 8.4% below its pre-pandemic level. In the province of Quebec, where Mitchell is located, the industry needs to fill 38,000 jobs in the next decade, according to industry trade group Aero Montreal.
Major casting makers like Berkshire Hathaway Inc's (BRKa.N) Precision Castparts Corp and Pittsburgh-based Howmet Aerospace (HWM.N), which supply Boeing, Airbus and General Electric (GE.N), are hiring after slashing staffing in 2020.
But it takes time to train new hires. Boeing Chief Executive David Calhoun warned that labor will remain a bottleneck for the industry for years.
"I don't see this getting resolved any time soon," Calhoun told a U.S. Chamber of Commerce conference this month.
The problem is most acute in the highly labor intensive, hard to automate castings industry. In a recent Jefferies survey, nearly three-fourths of aerospace equipment makers cited castings as the largest source of shortages.
Privately-held Mitchell Aerospace is encouraging staff to take overtime, raising wages by 4.75%, and offering workers referral bonuses. It is also trying to hire more women, immigrants and refugees from Ukraine.