Intensive cooperation Maastricht manufacturing industry

The collaboration of sixteen leading companies within 'Maastricht Makes' is creating a powerful ecosystem for the Maastricht manufacturing industry. In the coming years, they will work together to reduce labor market bottlenecks, the growth and development of human capital and the challenges of energy transition.

By Editorial Board Ondernemen in Limburg (source)

Maastricht Makes is a strong factor in the manufacturing industry in this region, with more than 3,000 direct employees and a much larger group of indirect employees. The Maastricht Makes companies produce steel products, dyes, tiles, glass, paper, snacks and cultured meat, among others. Most of these companies have a long history in Maastricht, some even for more than 175 years.

The energy transition obviously plays an important role in the manufacturing industry as well. The companies each have a major challenge to reduce their ecological footprint through making the production process more sustainable. This requires major investments and extra capacity in terms of personnel. Especially in this tight labor market, this is a major challenge.

In essence, Maastricht Makes focuses on strengthening the influx of new employees, developing talents and retaining employees. It is increasingly difficult to recruit and retain well-qualified staff. There is a growing shortage of operators and maintenance personnel in particular. The collaboration creates a strong connection between people and business, allowing talents to grow and sustainable careers to be realized.

From this collaboration, Maastricht Makes contributes to the task around broad prosperity - activating and supporting people from unemployment to (part-time) work is the best way to escape structural poverty. One of the projects of 'Maastricht Makes' is setting up an initiative to help people who are in a more difficult position on the labor market (status holders, asylum seekers, early school leavers) to find work.

This is one of the projects of 'Maastricht Makes'.

The municipality of Maastricht supports the Maastricht Makes partnership. Hubert Mackus, alderman for economics for the City of Maastricht, says: "The manufacturing industry has put Maastricht on the map and is still a powerful presence in our economy. Maastricht manufacturing companies are very high quality and innovate at a rapid pace. At the same time, the sector has some shared challenges in terms of labor, energy and visibility. Be it snacks or steel, cardboard or cultured meat. That's why we helped lead the way in connecting these leading companies more. Experience in other clusters such as the Customer Service Valley and Impact Gaming shows that working together pays off and contributes to an ecosystem and stronger anchoring with the region."

Maastricht Makes is a foundation, consisting of a board and steering committee. There are also working groups that, together with the Maastricht Makes project leader, set up and execute the various projects.

First and foremost is increasing the visibility of the manufacturing industry in Maastricht in collaboration with Maastricht Marketing. In addition, by lowering the threshold between job seekers and companies, efforts are being made to increase the response to open vacancies. In collaboration with Podium24, MTB and Vista College, the companies are launching a project to help status holders and long-term job seekers find work. By offering training and experience opportunities, the influx of people into engineering is expected to increase. This also requires cooperation with labor market partners and other initiatives in the region.