

US Manufacturing Isn't Dead, But its Jobs Are - doki_pen
http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2010020825/no-virginia-us-manufacturing-isnt-dead

======
nhebb
Former Manufacturing Engineer here. One plant I worked for is gone. All 1000+
jobs are in China now. Another I worked at is half its former size locally,
with the other half of the jobs shifted to Mexico. A third was a smaller
plant, with only a few hundred workers but 5 unions. They still have an
operation locally but shifted their growth operations to a right to work
state.

You could make all the charts you want that show some vague correlation and
dismiss my statements as anecdotal, but in some areas the jobs have just gone
and the anecdotes represent the lives of real people.

The site linked to (ourfuture.org) is a progressive site, so I'll link to a
conservative piece as a counter-argument. There has a been a significant
difference in the manufacturing growth in right to work states vs forced
unionization states: [http://www.americansforprosperity.org/021909-right-work-
and-...](http://www.americansforprosperity.org/021909-right-work-and-
productivity-numbers)

While the site I linked to tries to make a single issue of it, there has been
a large scale shift from the rust belt to the sun belt in the last few
decades. Right to work vs forced unionization is one issue, but I'm sure that
state taxes and regulatory policies played a hand as well.

------
DevX101
With the industrial revolution, there was a massive shift among the
lower/lower-middle classes from farming to manufacturing. Where will this
large group of people who lost their jobs in the recent productivity surge go
now? I don't think everyone enjoys or is cut out for computer based or
intellectual work and there should be a viable option for 'hands-on' people to
earn a livable wage.

I spoke to an American businessman that did some work in China and he
mentioned that if you invented a new technology that was highly productive and
removed the need for a lot of manpower, you'd have a tough time getting that
pass the government. For them, having jobs for the 1+ billion Chinese is a top
priority, even if they have to sacrifice some productivity to get there.

Productivity shouldn't be pursued at all expenses. Sometimes inefficiencies
are good (see the U.S. political system of checks and balances, redundant
systems in engineering). When the car industry/steel industry was bustling in
the U.S., many of those lower-middle class workers bought homes, cars,
televisions and created a market for financial and high-tech products. If this
segment of society can't be integrated into the economy, I fear there will be
long term negative impact on the demand for products that many of us here
build.

~~~
w1ntermute
> Sometimes inefficiencies are good (see the U.S. political system of checks
> and balances, redundant systems in engineering).

Those aren't good analogies. The "inefficiencies" in the US political system
aren't actually inefficiencies in the long run. They remove the need for
revolutions/coups to depose autocratic rulers. Same thing with redundant
systems in engineering - in the long run, they are the most efficient approach
to the problem, as they reduce rates of catastrophic failure.

However, indefinitely preventing technology from advancing civilization is the
exact opposite. For the short term "efficiency" of allowing those workers to
keep their jobs, we are tolerating the permanent inefficiency of clinging to
old technology.

I don't believe that there needs to be "a viable option for 'hands-on' people
to earn a livable wage." Our ancestors all used to be hunter-gatherers, but we
have somehow managed to survive in a world where hunting/gathering is
nonexistent. It is the remarkable adaptability of the human race that has
brought it so much success, and I believe we can continue to adapt to whatever
new technology we discover.

~~~
DevX101
> The "inefficiencies" in the US political system aren't actually
> inefficiencies in the long run

I agree, and I could argue the same thing for maintaining
manufacturing/vocational jobs. As I said in my first post, giving reasonable
wages to the lower/middle class means they have more disposable income and
consume more. I think this is a net positive economic effect. If a high net-
worth person makes 10x the average wage, that doesn't mean she will buy 10
times as many televisions, ipods, or cars. She may purchase HIGHER QUALITY
goods/services, but overall consumption from 10 workers making 40k per year
and 1 high net worth person making 400k per year are not equivalent. This
consumer demand from the lower-middle class ultimately creates markets and
creates long-term efficiencies.

>However, indefinitely preventing technology from advancing civilization is
the exact opposite

I don't want to cling to the past. But as our society progresses we must find
ways to integrate hard working people that aren't the type to sit in a office
all day. I think Germany is a good model. In high school, students are
separated into a vocational track or an academic track. Because of this,
Germany has a very highly skilled manufacturing workforce today.

>I don't believe that there needs to be "a viable option for 'hands-on' people
to earn a livable wage

I disagree very strongly with this statement. There are more 'hands-on' people
than 'intellectual' people in this country. If those 'hands-on' people can
earn $25 per hour, then you can make your apps and devices and they will have
enough money to buy it.

~~~
w1ntermute
Your entire argument is predicated on the belief that people cannot adapt to
their circumstances. History has demonstrated time and time again that people
are able to do so when they are forced to.

> There are more 'hands-on' people than 'intellectual' people in this country.

And once upon a time, there were more artisans than 'hands-on' people. When
the Industrial Revolution occurred and a lot of artisan jobs were replaced by
factory jobs, people made arguments similar to yours. But people have somehow
managed to adapt, haven't they?

> I think Germany is a good model. In high school, students are separated into
> a vocational track or an academic track. Because of this, Germany has a very
> highly skilled manufacturing workforce today.

But because of their specialized training, the German workforce is relatively
inflexible and has failed large portions of the population. There was an
article in this week's Economist about this[0]:

> Even so, the system has flaws. Some worry, for example, that a stronger
> general education is needed to equip young Germans to change trades should
> demand for their specific expertise dry up.

> A bigger concern is that early selection fails children from poor and
> immigrant families, who are likeliest to attend the least academic schools
> and to miss out on apprenticeships. Partly for this reason, there is a large
> group of students at the bottom of the rankings—which explains why the
> German average is still below par. “It is a schooling system that has left a
> large fraction of students behind,” says Andreas Schleicher of the OECD.

0: <http://www.economist.com/node/18061710>

------
pluies_public
Shouldn't the title read "its" instead of "it's"?

Sorry if it seems like nitpicking, but as a non-native English speaker I find
it weird how often this issue comes up. If any native speaker here has any
idea why this particular mistake is so prevalent, I'd be very interested.

~~~
mberning
You are correct, in the case of "it's" the apostrophe doesn't indicate
possession, but rather a contraction of 'it is'. I think it is a confusing
edge case, which English has many of.

~~~
NickPollard
Yes, it's one of English's many confusing edge cases, as normally an
apostrophe _does_ indicate posession - you would say "David's book", or
"Sarah's pc" - so this catches many people out (including me, quite often).

------
knowtheory
These are pretty graphs, but without a discussion of how the data was
collected and what it _means_ , i find it somewhat difficult to determine if
the blog author's analysis is correct.

Even hitting the original homepage for the data isn't very helpful (at a
cursory glance): <http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/INDPRO>

What counts as being manufactured in America? Does US assembly of parts made
in other locales count?

Because if it were to be the case that automated assembly of things made in
China count, then productivity/efficiency could be seen as increasing, even
though the majority of a product was created and built elsewhere.

Anybody know?

~~~
yummyfajitas
Your link doesn't point to the original homepage of the data. Click "Release"
then "Link", then "Documentation", you get the answer.

<http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/g17/>

------
Perceval
What this post also misses is the declining socio-political power of
manufacturing jobs. Two more charts are necessary: 1) the declining share of
the total workforce made up by industrial labor, and 2) the declining share of
unionized labor.

Even if the absolute numbers of manufacturing jobs had remained steady from
the 1950s to the present, the stagnation in absolute numbers would simply be
hiding a rather large relative decline.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Assuming I don't consider manufacturing unions to be my political cronies
(which I don't), why should I care about the declining political power of
manufacturing unions?

~~~
Perceval
I'm not particularly pro-union either. But, the article's author attempts to
distinguish between two things: U.S. manufacturing output (its productivity in
terms of the value of goods made); and, the absolute number of manufacturing
jobs. By doing so, he's trying to counter some of the popular perception that
"U.S. manufacturing is gone."

We are still a manufacturing powerhouse, but we are no longer adding
manufacturing jobs. In fact we can make the same or greater amount of goods
(by value) with the same amount or fewer manufacturing employees.

So the perception is that U.S. manufacturing is in decline, because the number
of manufacturing jobs stagnated from the 1950s to the 2000s. But those are
only absolute numbers. The real story is that by the 1970s already U.S.
manufacturing was perceived as being in decline. I'm speculating that we could
understand the provenance of that perception by looking at two more graphs:
percentage of workforce in manufacturing, and percentage of workforce in
(industrial) unions.

Why do these two graphs serve as good indicators of the nation-wide perception
of manufacturing decline? The first because the relative share of jobs held in
manufacturing is just as important as the absolute numbers in terms of social
weight, clout, and awareness. The union chart more specifically would show the
decline in political-economic clout held by people in the manufacturing
sector, most precipitously (I would speculate) in the 1980s. Without fresh
members, closed shops, local chapters, and substantial union bloc voting, the
socio-political place of unions in the day-to-day fabric of American life
begins to fade into the background.

So, whatever one's politics toward organized labor (present or historical), I
think such a chart would be illustrative of why there is a popular perception
that "U.S. manufacturing is gone."

------
dougabug
Steel production in the US is one tenth the level of steel production in China
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_steel_prod...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_steel_production)).
Perhaps I'm naive, but I'm inclined to believe that their industrial
manufacturing level now vastly outstrips our own.

~~~
jonknee
... And there are a lot more planes made in the US than China. Neither of
these things have much to do with which country has a larger total
manufacturing base.

~~~
brg
With the commercial airline plant opening in Shanghai, I see this too
changing.

------
FD3SA
This is an extremely cogent article on the unemployment issue. It appears the
US needs to seriously start considering the structural unemployment that
results from accelerating efficiency gains brought on by technological
progress. Although I am a huge proponent of free markets, I've always worried
what would happen when the radical pace of technological change outpaced the
average person's marketable skills.

My take on this is that human abilities are normally distributed, and the
average employable person lies right at the mean in ability. Technology, on
the other hand, started at the far left of the ability curve and slowly began
automating the most menial tasks. Over the last century, the mean
technological ability line has inched ever closer to the mean human ability
line, eliminating otherwise employable people from the market along the way.

You don't have to be a Singularitarian to see that this line has already
caught up to the mean human ability, as evidenced by the blue collar recession
we have experienced recently. The problem is that about 68% of the human
population lie within one standard deviation of the average. If you look at
the income gap data, it appears there is a divergence occurring in job demand,
where only the high skilled and certain non-automated low skilled jobs are in
demand. The big fat middle of the distribution appears to have been automated,
hence the lack of demand for blue collar jobs and the structural unemployment
we see today.

I would be curious to hear HN's opinions on how to deal with this issue. I am
at a loss, as the foundation of the issue is based on the non-malleable human
ability distribution and the ever accelerating pace of technological
efficiency.

~~~
sethg
There is a demand for medium skilled jobs. E.g., I see lots of ads for careers
in “medical billing and coding”, which is not the sort of work that requires a
bachelor’s degree, but you can’t just hire someone off the street to do,
either.

