"If you want to find a sewing operator, or someone who knows how to cut fabric, or someone who knows how to dye fabric, or fix a knitting machine, those are hard competencies to find," said Mark Sunderland, assistant dean of design, engineering, and commerce at Philadelphia University, founded in 1884 as the Philadelphia Textile School.
On Wednesday night, however, the optimists convened in Frankford at the first gathering in recent memory of the city's textile sector. Old-line manufacturers and the young artisans met and mingled at Global Dye Works, a former textile factory that is now a warren of artists' studios.
Steve Jurash, head of the Manufacturing Alliance of Philadelphia, and Karen Randal, director of the city Commerce Department's office of business attraction and retention, organized the event.
"All too often we hear that manufacturing is dead in Philadelphia," Jurash told the group. To him, the fact that 178 textile manufacturers remain is proof that "manufacturing is very much alive."
But, as he said Wednesday, 56 percent of local textile manufacturers surveyed said they had trouble attracting skilled workers.
"The thing that concerns me the most is that the average age [of textile employees] is 49," Jurash said. "Who is coming up behind them?"
"No one," someone in the group called out.
Decades ago, the city's textile industry employed thousands of Philadelphians. Now the average company employs 13.
Even as recently as 2001, 4,500 people worked in textile and apparel manufacturing in Philadelphia, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. By 2010, that number dropped below 2,100.
