Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

U.S. manufacturing jobs fading away fast
Yahoo/USA Today ^ | Fri Dec 13, 7:48 AM ET | Barbara Hagenbaugh

Posted on 12/14/2002 10:22:42 AM PST by 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.''


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Front Page News
KEYWORDS: allyourjobs; arebelongtous; crash; currency; depression; dollar; economy; freetrade; gold; investing; jobs; recession; silver; stockmarket; unemployment
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 61-8081-100101-120 ... 441-442 next last
To: ambrose
No need to fear about the loss of well paying manufacturing jobs... There are plenty of Wal-Mart jobs still to be had. And the Sheeple can still Buy! Buy! Buy! with their credit cards.

As empty containers are loaded onto container ships in the U.S. bound for China.

81 posted on 12/14/2002 12:20:16 PM PST by Joe Hadenuf
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Joe Bonforte
What facts pray tell do you present?

It all sounds like your opnion to me.

82 posted on 12/14/2002 12:21:42 PM PST by raybbr
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 74 | View Replies]

To: arete
thanks to the U.N wto, nafta
83 posted on 12/14/2002 12:22:59 PM PST by FreeSpeechZone
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: newgeezer
But a lot of the high tech jobs are going overseas also.
84 posted on 12/14/2002 12:27:10 PM PST by Karsus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 70 | View Replies]

To: raybbr
What facts pray tell do you present? It all sounds like your opnion to me.

---------------------------

Opinions, or half-supported opinions by some people on this forum are to be treated as incontestable fact. The same is true of temper tantrums.

85 posted on 12/14/2002 12:33:12 PM PST by RLK
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 82 | View Replies]

To: raybbr
What facts pray tell do you present?

It all sounds like your opnion to me.

Ask, and ye shall receive...

From another thread that was dissing NAFTA, I wrote:

"the unemployment rate in 1992 was 7.5%, and the most recent year for which we have full figures is 2001, for which the unemployment rate was 4.8%."

Source is US Dept of Labor. If you want higher unemployment numbers than that, just go back a bit further, say to the Carter administration.

Now for personal income. These numbers cover two periods of equivalent length - one before NAFTA, and one as NAFTA was coming into effect:

These numbers are inflation-adjusted, and represent total growth in personal income over the period:

1984-1992 - 12.2% growth in personal income per capita

1992-2000 - 14.6% growth in personal income per capita

On the effects of trade, name two major trading partners that have gone to war in the last fifty years. You'll have a tough time finding such a pair. There's a famous dictum that says that no two countries that both have a McDonalds in them has ever gone to war. That's a quick way to express the positive consequences of global trade.

86 posted on 12/14/2002 12:33:52 PM PST by Joe Bonforte
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 82 | View Replies]

To: arete
Yes, it is being created in other countries. It's called globalization.

Yes, other countries do making it attractive for U.S. companies to move their production overseas.

A more correct assessment, though, is that it is more a matter of businesses being chased overseas by business hating groups and government agencies, overregulation and costs over liability and workers comp insurance here in the U.S.

If conditions were right in this country, business would stay. That businesses move overseas only for cheap labor is a convenient myth. In some labor intensive industries, labor costs are an important factor. But even in labor intesive industries, the labor savings is only one componant of the many other benefits.

87 posted on 12/14/2002 12:35:09 PM PST by BJungNan
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: RLK
Opinions, or half-supported opinions by some people on this forum are to be treated as incontestable fact. The same is true of temper tantrums.

Almost the first thing you've said that I agree with. But I think objective observers can tell who is depending on facts and who is doing the half-supported opinions and temper tantrums.

88 posted on 12/14/2002 12:35:43 PM PST by Joe Bonforte
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 85 | View Replies]

To: Joe Bonforte
And your post on the other thread was refuted there and elsewhere.
89 posted on 12/14/2002 12:39:00 PM PST by RLK
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 86 | View Replies]

To: RLK
That's a lie.... You sound like the RATs Party. Just demagogery, no facts. Now consider this: Chinese wages ar at least 3X lower than American wages for doing the same type of work. United Airlines went bankrupt because the mechanics UNION refussed to adjust their wages to the level of what it's worth(relative to the competation. Now what is your explanation for job migration from the USA. Evil corporate executives just for fun wants to lay off US workers?
90 posted on 12/14/2002 12:40:11 PM PST by desertcry
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 51 | View Replies]

To: arete
NAFTA could trump water regulation (Does NAFTA superseed State Rights and laws? YES)
91 posted on 12/14/2002 12:41:33 PM PST by FreeSpeechZone
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Joe Bonforte
There's a famous dictum that says that no two countries that both have a McDonalds in them has ever gone to war.

--------------------------

A brilliant foreign policy justifying pandering to the resentment of other nations and forced redistribution of American recources to those nations under one-world socialism.

92 posted on 12/14/2002 12:42:23 PM PST by RLK
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 86 | View Replies]

To: arete
I've always worn Levi's 501 since I was little,(about 1950.) I now have three new pairs bought over the last 4 years. The oldest pair says "Made in USA". The next oldest pair says "Made in Mexico". The newest pair bought just a few weeks ago says "Made in Guatemala." I wonder if I live long enough if I'll see the tag "Made in Tierra Del Fuego"?
My Mom said that years ago Levis came in two different weights of fabric, a light and heavy one. She said the ones today are of the light weight.
93 posted on 12/14/2002 12:43:04 PM PST by Ruy Dias de Bivar
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: desertcry
Now consider this: Chinese wages ar at least 3X lower than American wages for doing the same type of work.

----------------------------------

More like 10X or more. Kind of like what the slaves in the old South in this country made. By God, we've moved the slave quarters on the old plantations thousands of miles away where the people in the new American plantation houses can live in ease while obscuring the process.

94 posted on 12/14/2002 12:47:16 PM PST by RLK
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 90 | View Replies]

To: desertcry
Yes -- but no. Not the unions themselves -- but the multitude of arcane and persnickedy regulatory behavior the union-managment miotic fulcrum enables. Not talking union rules either -- but the great burden of federal and state regulation and litigatory case law that would only have grown as bigh as it has in the manfacturing and transportation business dynamic that is so engendered.
95 posted on 12/14/2002 12:48:11 PM PST by bvw
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 29 | View Replies]

To: arete
WAL-MART and the RED CHINESE SECRET POLICE, {Red China Free Trade Zone in America}
96 posted on 12/14/2002 12:50:46 PM PST by FreeSpeechZone
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: arete
There only three ways wealth is created Mining, Manufacturing, and Agriculture. The only way we can compete in this type of marketplace is through value added processes that convert the basic raw materials into something no one else can make. We will never be able to compete in basic industries anymore
97 posted on 12/14/2002 12:52:28 PM PST by tom paine 2
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: BJungNan
What is the benefit, other than cheap labor costs, of moving tech overseas?
98 posted on 12/14/2002 12:52:55 PM PST by Karsus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 87 | View Replies]

To: Ruy Dias de Bivar
The newest pair bought just a few weeks ago says "Made in Guatemala."

A little off subject but the CIA has been very active in Central American for years. Knew a young lady who used a "government grant" to spend 3 months a year down there "studying" the native populations and writing reports which were dutifully turned in to the "sponsoring" agency. BTW, when asked if our government was actively involved in the politics there, she refused to talk about it.

Richard W.

99 posted on 12/14/2002 12:54:44 PM PST by arete
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 93 | View Replies]

To: arete
In the U.S., we are slaves to consumerism and debt. We're all becoming slaves to the ruling class elite puppet masters.

It's either slavery by choice or slavery by programming. A person could actually live pretty cheaply, with some of the incredible bargains out there. The problem is really with housing. You'll know people are beginning to smarten up when you see rooms being rented out in oversized houses.

100 posted on 12/14/2002 12:55:02 PM PST by grania
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 61-8081-100101-120 ... 441-442 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson