The local NPR affiliate ran a story about a local firm that couldn't find enough candidates with strong mathematics skills for a high tech manufacturing positions with excellent pay.

I was in Calculus II at the time so I gave the company a call on a lark. They were offering something like 10.50 an hour to start. I chuckled and went off to my bartender cook job that paid over $20 an hour.

You can't find good candidates if a you can't match barista wages. Anyone with a brain and decent teamwork/social skills will work somewhere with flexible hours, better pay and a better environment before they'll work graveyard making widgets. Service jobs develop skills that easily transfer from job to job giving workers more freedom to move around or and self select what kind of asshole they are willing to work for. Most skill intensive manufacturing jobs aren't going to offer near the type of flexibility that service experience offers.

When minimum wage goes up to $15 dollars in this town the only people who are going to work non-social labor jobs will be the bottom of the barrel. Manufacturers are going to have to get prisons to teach math if they want workers that are numerically competent.