The shortage comes at a bad time for U.S. manufacturers, who are finally seeing an upswing in business. If they can't find the skilled workers they need, many companies could ultimately find it tougher to remain players in globally competitive markets.

Since the latest machinery is increasingly available in many other parts of the world as well, "the only way to keep a competitive edge is by having the skilled people who know how to get the most out of those machines," says Stephen Mandes, executive director of the National Institute of Metalworking Skills, a group that sets worker skill standards.

Some companies are already turning away business for lack of expert workers. Accu-Swiss Inc., which makes specialized metal parts for medical and defense industries, has turned down between 10% and 20% of potential business this year for lack of Swiss-style machinists to staff its factory, says Sohel Sareshwala, president of the Oakdale, Calif., company.

"It's clear that a hot emerging issue for manufacturing is skilled-worker shortages," says Jerry Jasinowski, president of the National Association of Manufacturers. He says the problem will worsen in coming years as baby boomers retire.

Boston Centerless Inc. in Woburn, Mass., a 106-employee maker of highly precise metal parts for other manufacturers, used recruiters to hire five Swiss-style machinists this year. It still needs at least two more. The company pays current workers bounties of up to $500 a head for referrals that lead to new hires. The most skilled new hires earn up to $25 an hour.

Evolving Demand

Throughout U.S. history, different groups of skilled workers have been in short supply at different times. In the last century, the auto industry recruited many tool-and-die makers from Europe to fill slots. Before that, there was a great need for electricians in U.S. factories as electric power spread through manufacturing.

Claudia Goldin, an economist at Harvard University who has studied the history of labor markets, says specialized technology often leads to bottlenecks in the labor market, increasing the earnings of skilled workers. If wages are high enough for long enough, more people come to those jobs, bringing supply and demand into equilibrium.

It isn't clear just how many Swiss-style machinists there are in the U.S., because numbers in the specialty aren't tracked separately. Of the nation's estimated 380,000 machinists, fewer than half are considered highly skilled workers, says Richard Walker of the National Tooling and Machining Association. Swiss-style machinists are a subset of those.

For years, the machining business drew on European immigrants trained in an apprenticeship system that developed specialty factory workers. But in recent decades, the wage differential that made the U.S. so attractive has vanished.

Meanwhile, U.S. apprenticeship programs have dwindled as the large American companies that once provided the bulk of such training have cut back to save money and now outsource some of the work.

Swiss-style machinists typically start out learning basic machining skills, often at trade schools. After that, most of the training occurs on the job. Each of the many different types of Swiss machines takes time to master. Workers typically build up a repertoire on various machines over time, gradually becoming more valuable as they learn. It can take three years of experience to be considered competent in basic Swiss-style skills.

The increasingly computerized machines look like large enclosed booths, about the size of a car. They typically come with huge attachments, such as long automated devices that feed metal in from one end. Inside a door that workers can open, multiple cutting tools are moving, often simultaneously, to shape the final part. The most-skilled workers need to be able to understand and control complex combinations of movements -- planning each action of the tools and preventing them from bumping into each other while they're in motion.

Strong math ability is a given. One reason more young people don't enter the field is that those with such advanced conceptual skills tend to go to college and become engineers, industry officials say.

Swiss-style machining can produce parts that are both very precise and exceedingly small. In some cases, a large machine's entire daily production can fit in a coffee cup. At Marox, Mr. Schrader's employer, a simple titanium bone screw for use inside the human body can cost a hefty $10. Depending on their complexity, such screws can take anywhere from two to seven minutes to produce in the machines.

Mr. Schrader, a 31-year-old husband and father of two, never imagined he'd be so sought-after. He was a strong math student in high school in Athens, Pa., but he dreamed of being a farmer. His parents objected, worried he wouldn't be able to make a living.

His grandmother, who worked in the tool department of a factory, suggested he become a machinist. Mr. Schrader studied computer-controlled machining at a two-year technical college.

His first factory job paid $7 an hour -- hardly enough, he says, to pay his student loans. But within a year, he moved into the better-paying specialty of Swiss-style machining when he landed a job making cable-television connectors at a factory in Horseheads, N.Y. It was sink or swim: His employer took him out on the floor and assigned him to four machines. "Anything you couldn't fix, you had to find someone to help you," he says.

Mr. Schrader was working at C&M Machine Products in Hudson, N.H., when a co-worker mentioned his name to recruiter Tom Medvec, who'd already found the colleague a better-paying job. Mr. Medvec describes Mr. Schrader as a "good solid bench player, not a superstar." He needs more experience to be considered top-tier, Mr. Medvec says.

But still he was in demand. One prospective employer offered to fly Mr. Schrader to St. Petersburg, Fla., for an interview. He was tempted but knew he didn't want to move that far away from family in Pennsylvania. Instead he went for Marox, whose plant is in the old mill town of Holyoke. Mr. Schrader and his wife, Amy, a nursing aide, were able to buy a modest two-family home in nearby Chicopee, Mass. They're renovating the second unit to rent it. Mr. Schrader hopes to own 10 rental properties by the time he's 40.

Mr. Schrader was also drawn to Marox's state-of-the-art factory and attractive layout, something industry officials say is increasingly important in finding skilled workers. Nestled on a grassy slope on the outskirts of Holyoke, the plant is just four years old. The production floor is lined with big windows that allow workers to see into the offices in the front and feel less isolated.

Although the plant is kept clean with a floor-cleaning machine that resembles the Zamboni machines that recondition ice rinks, the work can still get dirty. "There are times I come home with oil up to my armpit," he says.

Mr. Schrader says he earned about $50,000 last year at Marox, including considerable overtime. He doesn't want to reveal his hourly wage, for fear of causing friction. He has already been taken aside once by his boss for talking about his earnings, though he denies he did so.

'I'm Lucky'

Sliding onto his living room couch one recent evening, Mr. Schrader pulled his legs up under his beefy frame as his beagle, Sammy, clambered up onto the back of the couch behind him. He says most machinists keep an eye open for new opportunities, because jumping into new jobs and learning new skills is the way they manage to get ahead and earn more. "I just sort of fell into my jobs," he says. "But it seems every job has moved me ahead. I'm lucky."

Mr. Schrader says he has no intention of leaving his current job, though. He appreciates that Marox has already sent him to two different week-long seminars to improve his skills on newer machines.

His former employer, C&M, would like to hire him back and made an indirect overture, says its manufacturing manager, Robert Gillis.

C&M ran an ad on the Monster.com job-search Web site for six months seeking skilled machinists and didn't get a single candidate, Mr. Gillis says. C&M recently lost two more of its Swiss-style machinists. One left for heart surgery, and the other, a Bosnian immigrant, wanted to take the summer off to relax.

Manfred Rosenkranz, Marox's German-born chief executive, says Mr. Schrader's age makes him more valuable: "The really young don't have the experience, and the old-timers don't know the new technology." Even those familiar with the computerized machines must stay abreast of continual advances aimed at making the machines even more precise and versatile.

Marox recently hired two more Swiss-style machinists. It would add a half-dozen more if it could find them, Mr. Rosenkranz says. He once considered recruiting directly from Switzerland, but business friends in Europe told him nobody would move to work for a small company.

Mr. Rosenkranz recalls that several years ago he was looking at hiring a particular Swiss-style machinist and contacted a fellow businessman who knew the worker. The man gave a glowing evaluation -- and then hired the machinist himself. In response, Mr. Rosenkranz hired one of the businessman's top workers, who now oversees Marox's Swiss-style machining.

Write to Timothy Aeppel at timothy.aeppel@wsj.com¹