There is a popular myth that the U.S. has abandoned its reliance on manufacturing as we pass into some sort of post-industrial economy built upon services. In reality, U.S. manufacturing remains the largest and the most innovative in the world, and is today reasserting itself as a pace- setter for the rest of the economy. In fact, the Institute for Supply Management's factory index increased to 61.4 percent in February from 60.8 in January. Anything over 50 means manufacturing is growing. Over 60 means it is growing big time.
And today's unemployment report suggests that manufacturing is at long last turning the corner on job creation. The overall unemployment rate fell to 8.9 in January, still too high but moving in the right direction. Best of all, we added 192,000 jobs in the private sector, and 33,000 of them were in manufacturing.
That is not to suggest that manufacturing will become the job creation machine that it used to be. Most low skill manufacturing jobs have gone away and are not coming back. In fact, one of the major complaints of U.S. manufacturers today is that they cannot find job applicants who are qualified to work in modern, high tech manufacturing. We have a very real skills gap that is going to hinder employment in manufacturing for some time to come.
Even so, the news from the factory floor is positive. Some of the rebound is cyclical, but there is more to it than that, a lot more. The reality is that U.S. manufacturing has gone through a painful restructuring in response to unprecedented global competition and the prolonged recession. U.S. manufacturing companies today are running more productively, have cleaned up their balance sheets, and are now making record profits. They are sitting on cash amounting to more than 7 percent of corporate assets and are spending on rebuilding factories, technology and innovation, growing exports and major acquisitions.
Today, U.S. manufacturers can compete with anyone in the world in both quality and price. The corporate landscape abounds with lean, profitable firms on the cutting edge of technology that are among the best in the world - Apple, Caterpillar, Danaher, Proctor & Gamble, Intel, Boeing, Cisco Systems, 3M, United Technologies, the list goes on and on. These are our nation's most influential economic champions, and they are more than holding their own in the international marketplace.
Our government can support the manufacturing surge by reducing the excessive costs borne by U.S. manufacturers and paving the way for more exports. Now is the time to recognize that manufacturing is driving the recovery and can provide the spark for future growth and job creation. May the manufacturing surge continue!
Jerry Jasinowski, an economist and author, served as President of the National Association of Manufacturers for 14 years and later The Manufacturing Institute.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/28/health-care-tax-break-deficit_n_788852.html
Job-Based Health Care Threatened
"WASHINGTOÂN — Job-based health care benefits could wind up on the chopping block if President Barack Obama and congressioÂnal RepublicanÂs get serious about cutting the deficit.
Budget proposals from leaders in both parties have urged shrinking or eliminatinÂg tax breaks that help make employer health insurance the leading source of coverage in the nation and a middle-claÂss mainstay.
The idea isn't to just raise revenue, economists say, but finally to turn Americans into frugal health care consumers by having them face the full costs of their medical decisions.
[snip]
Repealing the tax break would raise several hundred billion dollars a year, depending on how it's done. Many economists believe employers would boost pay if they didn't provide health care..."
Anyone who thinks employers would boost pay to compensate is delusionalÂ.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14986-worlds-largest-health-system-rejects-free-market.html
World's largest health system rejects free market - health - 20 October 2008 - New Scientist
"Free-market economic reforms rolled out across the Chinese health system in 1978 have led to a collapse in healthcare provision for a fifth of the world's population, researchers have concluded.
The Chinese government, recognising the disparities in access to healthcare between the urban rich and rural poor, is planning to overhaul the world's largest health system. The plan, entitled "Healthy China 2020", aims to restore universal access to primary healthcare by 2010..."
'Our government can support the manufacturing surge by reducing the excessive costs borne by U.S. manufacturers'
So these companies that are sitting on mountains of cash need some more goodies from the government and they Just Might decide to hire some more people, maybe. Fewer regulations, lower taxes that they are not paying anyway and might as well break the unions.
Except they won't be able to fine people with the proper training so if history shows us anything they will hire Contractors from some other country that have had a year of training. I have seen it in the IT industry and this sure feels the same. Business will say they can't fine the Purple Squirrel they are looking for so they will bring in Indian or Chinese contractors that have just enough training to know the buzzwords.
There is a popular myth that the U.S. has abandoned its reliance on manufacturing as we pass into some sort of post-industrial economy built upon services.
Posters note - not a myth - plenty of comments from politicians, business leaders promoting the idea of a service based economy vs aproduction based one, and evidence in closed facilities and lost jobs and huge trade deficit bely this assertion
In reality, U.S. manufacturing remains the largest and the most innovative in the world, and is today reasserting itself as a pace- setter for the rest of the economy. In fact, the Institute for Supply Management's factory index increased to 61.4 percent in February from 60.8 in January. Anything over 50 means manufacturing is growing. Over 60 means it is growing big time.
Posters note - Of coure compared to a decade of declines any improvement looks great, not so hot when put in the context of the shrinking percentage of the overall economy compared to other sectors, and when compared to the explosive growth in BRIC countries
And today's unemployment report suggests that manufacturing is at long last turning the corner on job creation. The overall unemployment rate fell to 8.9 in January, still too high but moving in the right direction. Best of all, we added 192,000 jobs in the private sector, and 33,000 of them were in manufacturing.
Posters note much of the job growth in mfg is recall of layed off workers as companies cut too deep
Posters note- And how come these guys can ever tell us exactly what skills they are lacking? that can't be fulflled by all the un and underemployed IT workers, engineers, skilled tradesmen, semi skilled labor and so forth? And where is the employers responsibility to retrain workers for the skills they supposedly need?
Even so, the news from the factory floor is positive. Some of the rebound is cyclical, but there is more to it than that, a lot more. The reality is that U.S. manufacturing has gone through a painful restructuring in response to unprecedented global competition and the prolonged recession. U.S. manufacturing companies today are running more productively, have cleaned up their balance sheets, and are now making record profits. They are sitting on cash amounting to more than 7 percent of corporate assets and are spending on rebuilding factories, technology and innovation, growing exports and major acquisitions.
Posters note-Yes its true that productivity is way up since after layoffs are doing the work that 2-3 people once did. , and much of it is rebuilding inventory as most cos. drained inventory to boost cash flow. no mention what so ever of 30 years of bad trade deals and economic ideology that has been the real problem for US mfg
Today, U.S. manufacturers can compete with anyone in the world in both quality and price. The corporate landscape abounds with lean, profitable firms on the cutting edge of technology that are among the best in the world - Apple, Caterpillar, Danaher, Proctor & Gamble, Intel, Boeing, Cisco Systems, 3M, United Technologies, the list goes on and on. These are our nation's most influential economic champions, and they are more than holding their own in the international marketplace.
Posters note - apple doesn't make anything in the US anymore, ever heardof Foxconn? Caterpillars CEO admitted on a national TV program that most of Caterpillars overseas sales are not exported from the US but mfd overseas, Boeing has outsourced over 40% of its production, Cisco is a software and services co Our government can support the manufacturing surge by reducing the excessive costs borne by U.S. manufacturers and paving the way for more exports. Now is the time to recognize that manufacturing is driving the recovery and can provide the spark for future growth and job creation. May the manufacturing surge continue!
Posters note - one of the biggest costs is health care that puts US industry at a competitive disadvantage, yet none of these guys is for a true national health plan, so what exactly are they talking about - taxes? lowest since - forever profits? - all time highs cash reserves? ditto what they are really talking abut are gutting safety, environmental and labor stds along with wages
We can't keep our focus solely on the GE's and Boeing's of the world.
Could the decline of Industrial Tech funding at the high school level have anything to do with that?
And who wants to spend thousands and years in college for the next job on its way to india?
Beyond the author's stated points, one fact that eludes many is that job loses in manufacturing are more a product of ever increasing innovation than "offshoring". That is, we continually find ways of producing ever more "stuff" with less effort. This applies as well to the service industries
The US must focus it's efforts on maintaining a highly skilled workforce, and a open, innovating economy that reduces government interference in the market place to the minimum needed to ensure such innovation can take place.
A separate area in which the Federal government can take a world-leadership position is to end all protectionist tariffs and all agri-industrial subsidies. These simply serve to protect the politically connected at cost to the consuming and tax-paying public.
'Our government can support the manufacturing surge by reducing the excessive costs borne by U.S. manufacturers'
It is another call for Less Taxes, Less Regulation and Less Workers Wages and Benefits.
For a whole bunch of companies that have been systematically moving production to China for the last 2 decades.
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Excellent post by a knowledgeable indiviudal.
Most thoughtful commentators attribute the unemployment to lack of appropriate job skills among job-seekers. Mid-level management jobs have been decimated by IT and computer technology. And manufacturing jobs have been eliminated by robots on the assembly line.
Many IT and computer tech companies' HR people that I have spoken to, inform me that getting Americans with IT and computer skills is difficult; and right now even H1-B visas quotas are far from filled. Hence many US companies keep their overseas operationsÂ, to be near where the appropriate  skill-sets are located.
Those with IT skills looking for positions may want to look at upstate NY. Ther are also openings in the healthcare and education fields - school and college.
So most bloggers complaininÂg about off-shorrinÂg of jobs, are presenting sour grapes, repeating the same old mantra, hoping for those big slalaries with stock options in start-ups, hesitant to relocate, do not know the facts or all of the above.
We should tailor immigration policies to reward those with desirable skills to stay here and use them.
Healthcare - most jobs in health care are not new jobs but replacements in this high turnover high burnout field.
If you think all factory jobs have been replaced by automation - you have a fundamental misunderstanding of automation - several key points, there have been no recent breakthroughs in automation technology that can account for the precipitous loss of mfg jobs and facilities in the last decade - name one please. ven the most complex robotics can not mimic all the things a human can do. automation is expesive and requires high volumeproduction to justify its costs, precisely the sorts of production most vulnerable to offshoring.
HR people set unrealistically high expectations to weed through the hundreds of resumes they get, and only wish to offer entry level pay for experienced and educated workers. No shortage of skills but there is a shortage of workers willing to work for third world wages
No, the author above is just spouting the same old NAM/CofC platitudes with little of substance or facts to back it up
What skills are short - these guys never seem to be able to say
And what about all the un and underemployed engineers and techs, skilled and semi skilled workers from the jobs lost and outsourced current recession and the auto industry - culd not these people be utilized in some way?
and who wants to invest years and thousands of dollars going to school to study for a mfg career that will be shipped overseas
'
Unaable or unwilling to move & improve, you sit around and stagnate, becoming even less-employable as time goes by and your skill set becomes even more obsolete.
not so mobile afteral most people have family and community ties that make a major relocation dificult - for most middle aged people its elderly parents to look after for one.
And in this real estate market how does one sell their home without taking a major loss.
?
And agai n what skills should someone reducate for ? what is a degree engineer lacking - as I said these guys like Janiskowski and yourelf are quick to perpetuate the myth but offer nothing substantive
> algebra - for calculating full and partial containers of raw materials to be added to batches
> computer operations - PLC's are pretty user friendly but they require some basic understanding of the logic behind computer programming
> inventory management - a field that is not often taught in US schools systems but is key to any mfg operation
> scheduling - for personnel and equipment, this "lost art" is a key determining factor n the efficiency of manufacturing
> communications - even writing a clear, concise email or memo is beyond most high school graduates I hire
> logistics - maybe a boring field but is what puts the service in customer service
> supervisory and management skills - we either have to train our own or hire experienced people
This is a subset of the areas where I cannot find young, eager new hires and I end up with only more mature, experienced personnel. The American education system does not turn out a product suitable for the relatively common needs of my small business.
Thanks for asking!
What places are you looking for potential candidates tech schools? universitiies? you offer any kind of internship programs?
Where do you see your responsibility to train people for the specific skills you are looking for or are unique to your industry?
Do you offer relocation assistance?
Are your requirements realistic and germain to the positions or simply wish lists and screening tools?
What kind of pay and benefits do you offer and are they commensurate with the level of education and experience you require?
And what is wrong with more mature individuals - certainly they have industry and life experience plus tend to be more stable employees tht benefit an org? favoring younger candidates could be seen as age discrimination as well
or has your company considered reloctating to states where there are are high concentrations of skilled and educated labor - such as MI, WI, IL, PA, OH - states that also have high numbers of un and underemployed skilled and educated labor?
So long USA its been real.
health care costs are about $2k of a new car - think how much more competitive a chevy would be if it were $2k less
health care costs are a major competitive disadvantage for US industry vs countries with national plans
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/28/health-care-tax-break-deficit_n_788852.html
Job-Based Health Care Threatened
1) mandated labor costs and rules
2) excessive regulatory rule compliance costs
3) Health care costs, driven ever upward by 3rd party payer costs and mandated coverages
Employers are stuck with #1 & #2 by law. #3 is an optional, but tax free (to the employee) offering, but in today's marketplace, only the lowest paying minimum wage jobs can find takers without offering health insurance.
Health insurance ought to be divorced from employment (much as your home & auto coverage is) to allow greater workforce mobility and to expand employment.
polluted air and water?
third world wages?
I'd say most would disagree with you