It’s been a few months since the last Ops Talent Index.

That pause wasn’t planned. But the market changed enough during it that simply picking up where we left off didn’t make much sense.

So OTI is back, with a tighter focus.

We’ll continue tracking the senior talent market across supply chain, manufacturing, operations, logistics and procurement, with more emphasis on what the data actually means for the people making hiring decisions.

Where is leadership demand building? Where is talent becoming more available? Which capabilities are commanding a premium? And where are companies struggling to find operators who have actually done the work?

The premise behind OTI hasn’t changed:

There is plenty of talent in the market. Proven operators are a different story.

Welcome back.

That’s the September U.S. Manufacturing PMI.

Manufacturing expanded for the ninth consecutive month. New orders rose to 55.3. Backlogs jumped to 56.4. Production remained strong at 56.7. Manufacturing employment registered 52.7, its third consecutive month in expansion territory. ISMS World

But there’s another number worth paying attention to:

That’s how many jobs the entire U.S. economy added in September.

The unemployment rate held at 4.2%, and manufacturing payroll employment was essentially unchanged. July and August payroll growth were also revised down by a combined 60,000 jobs.

Companies don't necessarily need more people. They need better operators.

The headline employment numbers suggest a soft labor market.

That can be misleading when you're hiring Director through VP leadership.

Manufacturers are simultaneously dealing with growing orders, expanding backlogs, low customer inventories, slowing supplier deliveries and sharply increasing input costs.

ISM's Prices Index jumped from 71.1 to 77.9 in September. Not one commodity tracked by the survey was reported down in price.

That isn't primarily a headcount problem. It's an execution problem.

And it changes the leadership premium.

Companies may be reluctant to add layers. They're considerably less reluctant to hire someone who can:

Protect margin. Improve throughput. Stabilize plants. Reduce working capital. Develop suppliers. Improve S&OP. Rationalize a network. Build accountability.

Companies have become more selective about adding headcount.

They have not become less demanding about performance.

MANUFACTURING & OPERATIONS

The interesting story inside manufacturing isn't simply whether companies are hiring.

It's what they're asking their leaders to solve.

September's numbers tell the story.

New orders are growing. Backlogs are growing. Supplier deliveries are slowing.

Customer inventories are too low. Input prices are accelerating.

Put those together and the mandate for plant and operations leadership changes.

A Plant Manager who can maintain production isn't enough.

Companies increasingly need leaders who understand OEE, labor productivity, maintenance reliability, automation, continuous improvement, cost structure and talent development simultaneously.

At the Director and VP level, the premium moves toward operators who have managed complexity across multiple facilities, functions and operating environments.

The question isn't: Have you run a plant?

It's: What happened to cost, service, throughput, safety and EBITDA while you were running it?

That distinction matters.

For years, supply chain diversification sounded relatively straightforward:

Reduce China exposure. Add Vietnam, India, Mexico or another sourcing location. Build redundancy.

Execution has proven considerably harder.

Some companies that moved production out of China are now moving portions back after discovering how difficult it is to replicate China's combination of supplier ecosystems, infrastructure, skilled labor and manufacturing capability elsewhere.

At the same time, global supply chain pressure increased again in September, according to the New York Fed's index.

That creates an important talent distinction.

Strategic sourcing experience alone isn't enough.

Companies need supply chain and procurement leaders who have actually executed: supplier transitions, dual sourcing, international manufacturing transfers, landed-cost modeling, supplier development, inventory buffering and cross-border logistics.

The premium is moving from people who can design the strategy to people who have lived through implementing it.

For procurement leaders, September's ISM numbers should get attention.

Prices increased for the 24th consecutive month, with aluminum, copper, diesel fuel, freight, electronic components, steel, resins, semiconductors and packaging among the categories reporting increases. ISMS World

This changes the procurement mandate.

The best procurement leaders aren't simply negotiating harder.

They're looking across:

Supplier concentration
Commodity exposure
Should-cost models
Contract structure
Alternative materials
Dual sourcing
Inventory risk
Total landed cost

The companies that treat procurement as a purchasing function will struggle.

The companies that treat it as a margin and risk function will have an advantage.

And that makes sophisticated procurement leadership considerably more valuable.

Transportation and warehousing employment barely moved in September.

But the pressure on logistics organizations hasn't disappeared.

If anything, the mandate is getting harder.

Companies are looking harder at network design, inventory positioning, automation, labor productivity, transportation spend and third-party relationships.

That changes the leadership profile.

The strongest distribution leaders aren't simply managing buildings anymore.

They're being asked:

Do we need this building?

Where should inventory sit?

What should we automate?

What should we outsource?

What service level are we actually buying with this cost structure?

Where is working capital trapped?

That's not warehouse management.

That's operating strategy.

THE RESUME IS BECOMING LESS USEFUL AT THE EXACT MOMENT COMPANIES ARE BECOMING MORE SELECTIVE.

One pattern continues to show up in senior searches:

Companies want fewer candidates. But they want considerably more evidence.

Titles are increasingly unreliable proxies for operating capability.

A VP of Supply Chain at one company may own procurement, planning, logistics, manufacturing and inventory.

At another, the same title may own planning and little else.

The same problem exists with Plant Manager, Operations Director and VP Operations titles.

So the evaluation question has to move away from:

“Have they held the title?”

toward:

“What complexity have they actually operated?”

For senior operating hires, I keep coming back to five things:

Scale. Revenue, facilities, headcount, SKUs and operating budget.

Complexity. MTO versus MTS. Regulated versus non-regulated. Union versus non-union. Domestic versus international.

Transformation. What was broken when they arrived?

Measured outcomes. What materially improved?

Repeatability. Have they done it more than once?

That's the difference between recruiting a résumé and recruiting an operator.

Manufacturing Leadership Demand

Manufacturing remains in expansion while operating complexity and cost pressure increase the value of experienced plant and multi-site leadership.

Supply Chain Transformation Demand

Trade uncertainty, sourcing diversification, inventory pressure and supply chain volatility continue to create demand for leaders with genuine transformation experience.

Procurement & Strategic Sourcing Demand

Rising input costs and geopolitical complexity are pushing procurement further upstream into margin protection, supply assurance and enterprise risk.

Logistics & Distribution Leadership

Overall employment remains restrained, but productivity, automation and network optimization continue to raise the bar for leadership.

Senior Candidate Availability

6.3 / 10 ↑

The softer employment market is creating more conversations. Proven operators with measurable results remain substantially less available than the headline labor market suggests.

Hiring Urgency

Companies remain cautious about discretionary hiring. When service, cost, customer performance or transformation is at risk, urgency changes quickly.

7.4/10

SELECTIVE BUT OPERATIONALLY TIGHT.

The market isn't short of candidates.

It's short of proven operators.

That's an important distinction.

A slower labor market does not automatically make a VP of Operations who has successfully turned around three plants easier to recruit.

It doesn't suddenly create more supply chain executives who have implemented S&OP across a fragmented multi-site organization.

And it doesn't manufacture procurement leaders who have actually moved a supplier base across countries without destroying service.

Those people remain scarce.

The market has more talent available. The talent companies actually want remains difficult to find.