The great industrial brain drain: Can chemicals capture knowledge before it’s gone?

Posted: October 20, 2025

The chemicals industry has a labor problem on the horizon. Today, around 30% of the industry’s workforce is 50 years old or older and due to retire in the next 10 years.^[1] Meanwhile, student enrollment in disciplines key to the industry are on the decline. Since 2019, enrollment in chemistry programs have plummeted by over 23%.^[2] Maybe that’s good news if you’re a chemistry student—and soon to be a decidedly in-demand young professional—but worrying news if you’re a chemicals company eyeing your shrinking pool of available talent.

With challenges incoming at either end of the workforce pipeline, chemicals companies will need to take a multi-pronged approach to successfully navigate the decade ahead. The companies that win out will be those that:

• Improve and accelerate their ability to train the next generation of workers
• Capture knowledge not just in people but in systems
• Compensate for lost intuition with predictive analytics

Fortunately, the data-driven tools and strategies that enable this comprehensive approach are already out there, tried and proven, and leading chemicals companies are already deploying them to great effect.

BASF: Training the next generation with next-gen simulation

Hands-on field training and classroom-based learning still have their place and usefulness in industrial onboarding, but they also have hard limitations, which are especially pronounced in the face of the looming labor shortage. Classrooms may impart knowledge, but they don’t impart experience. And while hands-on training can provide that experience, it doesn’t scale easily. Plants can’t very well accommodate large influxes of trainees cycling through live equipment without risking disruptions and safety hazards.

At BASF, the Germany-headquartered chemicals leader, realities of physical capacity made on-site training a nonstarter. With 50% of its operators due to retire in the decade, BASF needed to train a whopping 300 new operators a year. Immersive extended-reality simulation tools, though, allowed the company to take a more creative, innovative approach.

Now, equipped with VR headsets, new operators can step foot—virtually—into a digital replica of a real BASF facility. In this virtual training environment, operators can learn to manage complex chemical processes as well as rigorous health, safety, and environmental protocols. Beyond replicating day-to-day operations, VR also lets trainees do things that would be impossible or unsafe in a real plant, like peeking inside a distillation column to watch heat and mass exchange in action, or practicing responses to high-risk, low-frequency events like leaks, equipment failures, or emergency shutdowns. The result is safer, faster onboarding, and a deeper, more intuitive grasp of processes.

Now, equipped with VR headsets, new operators can step foot—virtually—into a digital replica of a real BASF facility. In this virtual training environment, operators can learn to manage complex chemical processes as well as rigorous health, safety, and environmental protocols. Beyond replicating day-to-day operations, VR also lets trainees do things that would be impossible or unsafe in a real plant, like peeking inside a distillation column to watch heat and mass exchange in action, or practicing responses to high-risk, low-frequency events like leaks, equipment failures, or emergency shutdowns. The result is safer, faster onboarding, and a deeper, more intuitive grasp of processes.

SCG Chemicals: Amplifying instinct with predictive analytics

Over long careers, veteran chemicals workers accrue a great wealth of tacit information—instinct honed by years of experience. Maybe they can recognize, just by sound, when a distillation column is flooding; maybe they know which pumps tend to seize after long bouts of downtime. This kind of intuitive knowledge can be difficult to effectively record, formalize, and transfer. When veterans retire, that intuition retires with them.

That’s where predictive analytics can make up the difference. By transforming years of historical data into predictive insight, it can identify anomalies and potential problems before they escalate, just like a veteran operator might, only with far greater consistency and accuracy.

In Thailand, SCG Chemicals deployed AI-powered predictive analytics along with a suite of other software tools to create its Digital Reliability Platform, a digital twin of plant operations that predicts equipment health, monitors performance, and enables predictive maintenance, virtually eliminating unplanned downtime. Within six months of deployment, SCG’s new platform boosted plant reliability to 99% and achieved a 9X ROI.

Mitsubishi: Institutionalizing operational memory

If predictive analytics gives new operators the real-time decision support they need to anticipate problems, then a single source of contextualized data gives them a strong understanding of what has already happened and how best to respond. This approach captures the plant’s institutional knowledge—engineering designs, equipment histories, maintenance records, process changes, and past incident responses—in a centralized digital repository of information. By organizing and presenting this information in a way that’s easy to access and act on, new operators can see the context behind every process and make informed decisions with confidence and speed.

Mitsubishi Chemical, for instance, deployed an integrated asset and data management platform at its Kyushu plant, which gives operators a more holistic view of real-time operations and engineering data. The new system cuts data retrieval and verification time by 60% and minimizes downtime in the event of anomalies. Now, even green operators can understand why processes behave as they do, follow best practices, and respond effectively to unusual events. By embedding operational knowledge into the system, Mitsubishi ensures that critical know-how stays with the organization even as veteran operators retire.

Digital tools for closing the chemicals talent gap

The labor crisis isn’t quite upon us just yet, but as sure as night follows day, it’s coming. And though it is by no means insurmountable, the challenge requires action today. For forward-looking chemicals companies, now is the time to build the tools and strategies they will need to stem knowledge loss, bridge workforce gaps, and turn talent shortages into competitive advantage. When the big shortage arrives in earnest, it will already be too late.

^{[1] Elser, B., Lhoste, S., & Horstman, A.-R. (2024, May 29). Cracking the labor productivity conundrum in the chemical industry. Accenture. https://www.accenture.com/us-en/insights/chemicals/labor-productivity-chemicals
[2] Boerner, L. K. (2024, August 19). Are undergraduate chemistry programs in crisis? Chemical & Engineering News, 102(33). https://cen.acs.org/education/undergraduate-education/undergraduate-chemistry-programs-crisis/102/i33}