7,231,000 Lost Jobs: Manufacturing Employment Down 37% From 1979 Peak

CNS ^ | May 12, 2015 | Terence P. Jeffrey

[DAC21]

I’m one of the seven million.

[bert]

actually, globalization is driven by competition.

the competition is driven by enormous change in communications and transportation and ease of money flow

[xzins]

and cost is the key ingredient FOR competition.

[expat_panama]

That's one of the reasons the 7m cut in manufacturing jobs is not the crisis --because even w/ 'em back we'd still be short.  The other reason is that even with the drop in manufacturing employment America's goods production is soaring.  U.S. per-capita goods production in real $ is now more than twice what it was in 1979.  iow, compared to the '79 peak America makes a lot more stuff w/ a lot less effort even after adjusting for population and inflation.

 

[xzins]

Wouldn’t you rather have your job back than get to extol the virtues of free trade?

[xzins]

an overabundance of available work is not a bad thing for workers.

[central_va]

gloBULLists have no allegiance to any country. Borders are the enemy.

[SunkenCiv]

The Obama Recession

to go with

The Obama Tax Hikes

[expat_panama]

...an overabundance of available work is not a bad thing for workers...

That sounds right but when we think about it an employee does not become better off when his employer can't hire more employees --but let's get back on topic:  compared to the '79 peak America now makes a lot more stuff w/ a lot less effort and American households now make more money after inflation than they did in '79.   The article's bogus.

[riverdawg]

“My sense is that globalization drives this more than automation”

I toured an automobile plant here in the U.S. a few years ago. It was amazing how few workers were required to build the vehicles and how quiet the main assembly line was.

[bert]

Your confusion of conspiratorial ppolitics with business indicates you general ignorance of the world

[central_va]

Your opinion that there is no downside to offshoring is plain disingenuous.

[xzins]

Competition for a thing cause the price of a thing to rise. Scarcity of a thing cause competition for a thing to rise.

[xzins]

I’m assuming a cheap worker in China can be taught to be the human monitor of a line of machines as easily as any other human being.

[riverdawg]

“I’m assuming a cheap worker in China can be taught to be the human monitor of a line of machines as easily as any other human being.”

Apparently not. Otherwise, all of those Toyotas made in KY and Hondas made in OH would instead be made in China.

[central_va]

Reagan saved auto manufacturing by requiring importers to build a percentage of their cars here.

[riverdawg]

My memory may be slightly off on this, but I recall that Reagan negotiated “voluntary” import quotas on Japanese-built cars. The major Japanese auto manufacturers then responded by building new plants here and developing partnerships to build cars jointly with US auto companies at existing US plants (e.g., the NUMMI plant in CA, which now is owned by Tesla.. Those import restraints are long gone, but the Japanese-owned plants here crank out more cars than we now import from Japan.

[xzins]

Then count on their being a financial reason for do so.

[riverdawg]

“Then count on their being a financial reason for do[ing] so.”

Of course, but automation (really, robotics) has allowed both U.S. and Japanese auto companies, and firms in many other manufacturing industries, to operate plants here profitably (rather than exclusively in China - or Mexico - where the relatively low-cost labor resides). This is the driving force behind the decline in manufacturing employment. As other posters have noted, our manufacturing sectors produces more stuff now than ever; it just does so with fewer workers.

[xzins]

There would be some truth in what you say, but the automation jobs in high tech that result from lost manufacturing jobs have just about ALL gone to immigrants for some strange reason or other.

I also believe that viable US companies using US workers with producer-worthy wages, prove that profits can be had, workers can be paid, without automation, and on this side of the water.