[paulnpace]

There exists greater issues in hiring for manufacturing when it is for new shifts. Master level technicians and foremen willing to work those hours can be exceptionally difficult to find, and everything flows out of these people. While similar issues likely exist relating to discovering talent for software development, I speculate that the factory will, in practice, have a harder time finding people (for new shifts).

My experience with seeing new shifts added is initially with only specific processes, and even with those it is with journeyman level technicians running a small crew to support relieving a bottleneck in production.

Alternatively, manufacturers can outsource until they have enough volume to add a shift, but across the economy the net is just transferring production from one facility to another.