U.S. manufacturing jobs fading away fast

Yahoo/USA Today ^ | Fri Dec 13, 7:48 AM ET | Barbara Hagenbaugh

[arete]

ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- Charles Seitz remembers when Rochester was a bustling manufacturing town. Now, all the 58-year-old unemployed engineer sees is a landscape of empty buildings.

''There's nothing made here anymore,'' the former Eastman Kodak employee says, his eyes welling with tears as he talks about his struggle to find a new job. ''Wealth is really created by making things. I still adhere to that.''

It's a situation that's been playing out across the country for decades but has received increased attention in recent years.

Fifty years ago, a third of U.S. employees worked in factories, making everything from clothing to lipstick to cars. Today, a little more than one-tenth of the nation's 131 million workers are employed by manufacturing firms. Four-fifths are in services.

The decline in manufacturing jobs has swiftly accelerated since the beginning of 2000. Since then, more than 1.9 million factory jobs have been cut -- about 10% of the sector's workforce. During the same period, the number of jobs outside manufacturing has risen close to 2%.

Many of the factory jobs are being cut as companies respond to a sharp rise in global competition. Unable to raise prices -- and often forced to cut them -- companies must find any way they can to reduce costs and hang onto profits.

Jobs are increasingly being moved abroad as companies take advantage of lower labor costs and position themselves to sell products to a growing -- and promising -- market abroad. Economy.com, an economic consulting firm in West Chester, Pa., estimates 1.3 million manufacturing jobs have been moved abroad since the beginning of 1992 -- the bulk coming in the last three years. Most of those jobs have gone to Mexico and East Asia.

Last month, film giant Eastman Kodak -- the largest employer in Rochester and the central focus of the community since the company was founded by George Eastman in 1888 -- announced it was shutting down an area plant and laying off the 500 employees who make single-use, sometimes called ''throw-away,'' cameras. The work will now be done in China or Mexico, two countries where the company already has operations.

The movement of jobs to other countries angers Seitz the most.

''The United States got to where it is today by making things,'' he says. ''People are suffering, and communities are suffering.''

[jayef]

Better yet, let's impose high tariffs on all foreign goods. That has worked really well for us in the past.

Do you people know anything about history? Please, please, please read an economic history of the Great Depression. If some of you people had your way, we'd be right back in 1932.

GEEEZ!

[desertcry]

...those who feel they've lost a job picking cotton.... Jobs picking cotton in the USA has gone extinct in the 1800s. The USA is the wrong place to live, if all one wants to do is pick cotton. I hear there's a lot of opportunities for thses people in Afghanistan or Bangladish.

[JustAnAmerican]

"It really depends on how much extra people are willing to pay for made in the USA goods.Are we for example, willing to pay twice as much for clothing to avoid buying imports? If so, then we also have to realize that means we will have less money to spend on other things, which means less money for other areas of our economy, which also can cost made in the USA jobs...and on top of it we will have to lower our standard of living.It's a trade-off."

I don't know about you but I don't mind paying more for something that will
(1) Keep Americans working.
(2) Last longer.
(3) Keep countries like China from getting the cash it needs to develop weaponry that might/(will in my opinion when it comes to China) be used against the USA.

I have yet to see any Clothing, Shoes or anything else for that matter (except Autos out of Japan), that would outlast American/European goods.

[jayef]

That's not what we did in 1930. What we did was pass Smoot-Hawley. Protectionism of any sort and to any degree is BAD for us as a nation.

We are not suffering from a lack of protectionism, we are suffering due to an overactive and overreaching Federal Government. To demand, nay beg for, more of the same is lunacy.

[JustAnAmerican]

"Better yet, let's impose high tariffs on all foreign goods. That has worked really well for us in the past. Do you people know anything about history? Please, please, please read an economic history of the Great Depression. If some of you people had your way, we'd be right back in 1932. "

I don't think any of us here want the USA to become a protectionist society, however the idea of becoming a "Service" Economy because some corporations care so much about the bottom line, is intolerable for most Americans. Just remember 0 manufacturing jobs in the USA puts us at the mercy of third world toilets, I would even settle for 50/50, thats called competition, but the way it is now its more like 99(foreign manufacturing)/1 American.

[dtel]

"We are not suffering from a lack of protectionism, we are suffering due to an overactive and overreaching Federal Government. To demand, nay beg for, more of the same is lunacy."

And just when do you think this overbearing gov will back off?

In the mean time, decimate the lower and middle classes and soon to be the upper-middle class, while we wait for your grand restructuring of government.

Sounds like a fine goddammed plan to me.

[jayef]

Gross overstatement of the problem.

[jayef]

I wasn't offering a PLAN. That's part of the problem with popular thinking on this subject. No PLAN is needed.

What PLAN has ever created a single job? What PLAN has ever resulted in economic prosperity for this country or any other? Your suggestion that we need some PLAN is just so much leftist claptrap.

What we need are free markets, free trade and less regulation. We need government to get the hell out of the way. We need a competitive education system and labor pool, not some European style make-work, job-saving PLAN.

[nanny]

Not true. I've bought shirts and pants of comparable quality at Wal-Mart for half of what I've been used to paying at other stores.

Well, that is not true for me. The quality is shabby - causing us to have to buy more and more. The same brand name pants I bought at mid-priced stores are now at Wal Mart - same price last about 6 months.

Of course not everything at Wal-Mart is cheaper, but the reason they get so much business is precisely because of their lower prices.

I never go to Wal Mart for their prices. I have to go there unless I want to drive 80 to 100 miles - but even then I go to any store - I get the same thing - made in "-----" and cheap quality.

And not all of their cheaper products are manufactured overseas either. Some savings are just a result of their buying USA produced good in huge quantities.

Very little USA products - that was a bit of scam advertising.

But it is not just Wal Mart - it is everywhere you go - you can pay 100 for that pair of jeans or 20 dollars and they are made the same place with same quality. That used to be true in USA - most sewing factories made the same garments for high-end stores they did for the less expensive stores - just sewed different labels on them. The quality was the same - good.

[dtel]

"What we need are free markets, free trade and less regulation. We need government to get the hell out of the way. We need a competitive education system and labor pool, not some European style make-work, job-saving PLAN"

Are you just preternaturally stupid or do you ignore your own words?

Did you think if you say it, it magically happens?

Abra cadabra fed gov get out of the way. There that ought to fix it.

[jayef]

Can you try to avoid the ad hominem attacks please?

Help me understand your argument. Because we have powerful and overreaching federal government, we should submit to its will when it comes to economic matters. Is that your preferred approach?

I understand your desire to be pragmatic, but I reject the framework to which you wish to enslave my thinking. I utterly reject the notion that only the federal government can slay the "trade imbalance" bogey that you have created. I utterly reject the notion that only the federal government can create, protect or otherwize provide citizens of any class with jobs.

You seem to think that there is some moral imperative to work within this broken system and that all solutions must be fashioned with its limitations in mind. I utterly reject that notion.

[dtel]

"You seem to think that there is some moral imperative to work within this broken system and that all solutions must be fashioned with its limitations in mind. I utterly reject that notion."

My dear sir, I don't have all day to talk in circles with you, either make some point, any point or shut up.

[jayef]

Uhh . . . I'll shut up. Thanks for the enlightening conversation. I'll just move on over to the adult's pool.

[dtel]

Don't let the bullies kick sand in your face.

[jayef]

By the way, I can't wait for my LSU Tigers to show the Texas Longhorns up for the overrated, couldn't win a big game, weak sister of a weak conference that they are.

[jayef]

Thanks for the advice. I've always been adept at recognizing bullies and mental midgets for who and what they were. I'm sure my instincts still serve me well.

[dtel]

"By the way, I can't wait for my LSU Tigers to show the Texas Longhorns up for the overrated, couldn't win a big game, weak sister of a weak conference that they are."

So now you're crowing because your government sponsored school is gonna beat my government sponsored school in a meaningless football game?
And you wonder why I am asking you to make some sort of point?
Just because I raise Registered Texas Longhorns does not mean I attended or support the school known as the University of Texas.
I am sure the adults will be quite impressed with your reasoning ability.

[jayef]

It was a quip. Get over it. I don't care what school you root for.