The US jewelry industry is shrinking, and not just at the retail level. The number of jewelers is set to decline by 7% in the 10 years from 2016 to 2026, according to the nation’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. Even with retailers, manufacturers, schools and organizations working to recruit and train the next generation of craftspeople, it’s proving difficult to replace the talent the industry is losing each year as people age out of their professions.
Working together Developing new talent requires a group effort by the trade, believes Tim Drouhard, founder and instructor at the Drouhard National Jewelers School in Mansfield, Ohio. “We have a strong network of industry leaders,” he points out, and a number of players have proven instrumental in guiding newcomers. Trade body Jewelers of America (JA) and supplier Rio Grande — which has a slew of educational videos on YouTube — are among the examples he cites, as are sales consultant Shane Decker and David Geller, author of
Geller’s Blue Book on jewelry repair and design.
Independent jewelers are also making education a priority. Gary Dawson, owner of Gary Dawson Designs in Eugene, Oregon, is helping to recruit both mentors and students and to develop industry-wide training standards. Dawson is a founding member and consultant in the BEaJEWELER program, an initiative of the Manufacturing Jewelers & Suppliers of America (MJSA). He also works with students of the Portland Jewelry Academy and offers a weekly student day at his workshop.
Meanwhile, some retailers offer their own apprenticeship programs. Beeghly & Co. Jewelers in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, is one of those businesses. It based its program on the MJSA guide to apprenticeship, according to sales manager Alison Beeghly. “I handed that to our jeweler and said, ‘Hey, someone has thought about this a lot. Let’s use this as much as possible.’”
No simple task Beeghly says jewelry design schools are helpful in providing young talent, but keeping new jewelers in the trade isn’t easy.
“A lot of people who go into the jewelry market are looking at the design field, but don’t want to weld 50 jump rings a day,” she explains. “We want to find someone who wants to be a jeweler the way a mechanic wants to be a mechanic. And we want to be confident that we can spend a year training someone, and they’ll stick around for at least three years. And hopefully more.”
One reason retention is so difficult is that the pay can be low. The median annual salary for bench jewelers in 2017 was just under $38,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“A lot of the old wizard goldsmiths are dying off, and we’re rapidly losing a body of knowledge,” laments Dawson. “We’ve got to be able to pay people living wages, too. There’s an unwillingness [to do so].”
That said, he reports a resurgence in interest among young people when it comes to learning the craft. “There’s a growing awareness that we’ve got to get away from a throw-away culture — we have to manufacture things that can be repaired instead of thrown away. And social media is pushing the idea that tools are good and handwork is good, and you don’t have to be a banker.”
Tech and tradition Digital tools such as computer-aided design (CAD) have helped the industry, says Drouhard. “In today’s world, we don’t have years to apprentice to learn our trade. And yet, the smallest jeweler in the most remote town can produce some of the finest jewelry ever made.”
He also says people with traditional craftsmanship skills make the best CAD artists. “Their minds are more trained to see three-dimensionally. They understand prong placement and tolerances that can’t always be understood from a two-dimensional monitor.”
And while he naturally believes brick-and-mortar schools are still crucial, Drouhard hails internet-based initiatives such as YouTube instructional videos and the Jewelers Helping Jewelers Facebook group.
Jewelers shouldn’t underestimate the importance of technology in design, stresses Beeghly. “The emphasis on CAD has had an enormous influence. You need someone who can work mechanical, but who can also think in the digital space. We rely really heavily on the jewelers here who have been in the business [since before] the shift to CAD to balance things out between digitally driven design and craftsmanship.”
Standard bearers Setting standards for both jewelry-making and training is another challenge. Dawson feels the industry has failed to create comprehensive guidelines.
“So-called master-jeweler programs that have been attempted were not, to my knowledge, standardized across the industry,” he says. “Goldsmiths are the most independent group of people you’ll ever run into, and they don’t want to have standards pushed down their throat. And also, no one has attempted to accumulate enough data to see where standards lie.”
The existing standards tend to come from corporate jewelers, adds Beeghly, and these don’t always take the independent businesses’ needs into account. “We rely on the bigger companies to do the training, which isn’t the best way, because the independent jewelry store is a delicate balance between repetition and creativity.”
In-store learning Stores that want to develop their own training programs should understand that it doesn’t have to be expensive. “Most of the learning takes place at the bench in your store,” Drouhard says.
Dawson recommends the book
A Jeweler’s Guide to Apprenticeships by Nanz Aalund as a source of advice on tools and skill standards, creating effective programs, and the legal and ethical aspects of in-house training.
For Beeghly, community engagement with local high-school career weeks has been helpful, as has development direction from the American Gem Society’s AGS Conclave event. But it’s not always enough.
“The bigger point we’ve struggled with in our apprenticeship program is time management,” she says. “It’s hard trying to find the time to do it all — trying to handle all the things that are thrown at you on a daily basis and looking at the bigger picture of keeping the industry alive.”
In general, it helps to have students who are driven to learn. “Hire someone with passion,” advises Drouhard, “because every day is a school day for a bench jeweler.”
Image: iStock photo/Miljko Article from the Rapaport Magazine - April 2019. To subscribe click here.