What's happened to all the manufacturing jobs?

The problem is the disappearance of "good paying" jobs due to many causes. Increased production efficiencies, movement of production to lower cost locations, elimination of the need for certain skill sets.

Simply "educating" people will not solve the problem. Lots of high skilled jobs have moved overseas especially in the tech arena. For example, despite the fact that I'm in the tech industry I'd recommend against anyone pursuing this field except as it relates to cyber security. Programmers, designers, engineers, and the like? Those jobs are moving overseas.

As more people are trained in the fields I mentioned the increase in supply will put downward pressure on wages. The result is that people will chose to be trained in other skills where more opportunities exist. As new opportunities are created people will move into those fields and the cycle will continue.

As noted earlier in the thread the total manufacturing output in the US has increased some 80% over the last 30 years. This despite the movement of manufacturing facilities off shore. Even if we bring back 100% of those facilities the jobs created will be fewer and the salaries lower as demonstrated by the auto industry.

 

I guess we are both expressing the same complaints then. The only difference is that you look for the "powers that be" to provide the solutions for us, while I don't see them to have the ability nor incentive to provide them. I think it is up to us to shape our own solutions and futures.

 

The ability of any person to "shape" their future is entirely dependent upon the availability of the resources needed to take action. So, yes, I'd like to see training programs that focus on jobs that are difficult to offshore. I'd like to see tax credits for companies hiring people graduating from these programs to give them a couple of years of experience. Over the long haul it is the cheaper course of action over welfare, unemployment, and permanent dependency.

 

You're still looking for the establishment to solve your troubles. Give it up! They can't! It's up to us! We have to create our future or spiral downward into the abyss that awaits.

 

Sigh...

50 year old man with two teenage kids working two barely above poverty level jobs to support his family. He used to have a job paying twice as much but the plant closed and now he's struggling with two jobs, a mortgage and a family to support.

Where does this man find the time to change his future?
Where does he find the money?

Of course he could abandon his family, share a cheap apartment and borrow the money to pursue the needed training. But, I'm looking for a better solution.

 

Not necessary. Be part of the solution. Get informed regarding what is actually happening in the capitalist economies. Discover how it unavoidably got to this and you will see where it's going. Then talk. Spread the knowledge. Find out who is organized on the basis of this factual reality. Join the resistance by email, protests, and occasional attendance at meetings. Show up. Support non-establishment candidates.

It doesn't have to consume a person's life. He just needs to be part of the solution.

If you actually know this person, what sort of work does he do?

 

I'll tell him to get busy writing emails and attending protest. I'm sure he'll have the time somewhere in the 100 or so hours he works every week. He was an auto worker and 20+ years ago made over $70k with overtime. Fifteen years of wage concessions and a couple of retoolings later his job no longer exists. If he could get back on he'd be making about $20 an hour. But he can't get back on. So, he works jobs as a security guard and store clerk and cuts grass during his "off" time.

Maybe some 150 years ago it was possible for a person to "pick himself up by his bootstraps" and march to success but for every person succeeding that way there remained hundreds living in poverty. We, as a people, have decided that we want to help people like this succeed. We've just not done a great job in setting up the tools.

 

Understood. This is going to be a long-term solution. But it isn't wise to put it off. We need to take advantage of any opportunity to join in worker-owned, worker-controlled co-ops and to start them any time the opportunity shows up. Only this way can we take charge of our work lives and be part of determinations of how to shape them. Many co-ops offer incomes a bit better than private competitors, and the job security can't be beat. And now there are resources for start-ups: https://usworker.coop/democratic-workplaces/

 

Subscribing to good thread.

I'll just add that anyone willing to learn and absorb new skills can make a great living - it doesn't require a doctorate.

But as my Dad always says, you will never get rich working for someone else.

 

It's not as simple as that any longer. Some day you and others who still think that way will wake up to the fact that capitalism continues to change as it advances, and it has reached the point now at which it cannot provide for the consumption it needs to remain healthy and robust. In fact it lost the ability to produce the demand and consumption 40 years ago and the consumption needed was "artificially" created with the heavy pushing of credit card usage. That bit us in the butt in 2008 and now there is no solution to slumping profits but mergers and automation and resulting unemployment.

 

Absolutely. But automation always breeds new industries. Buggy whips are gone, but we have auto mechanics.

I work in the tech field, and support a large family with an associates degree. That's really the minimum bar - nothing like 8 years of med school, or an engineering degree.

Sure, you will do better with more school, but it's only necessary to get in the door. Learning ability and experience are the measures of success, as they always have been.

 

The balance of trade often appears to be incomprehensible. If you sell something to another country, they'll surely want you to buy something of theirs.

 

Costco, Home Depot ,and Monsanto.Can't wind back the clock.

 

Trading IMO is like a contract in which two or more parties are in agreement on something. And each party can barter or pay cash or a little of both. When bartering it is imperative that goods/services are equitable on both sides. I'll take your 10 onions and give you 5 avocados...although different quantities each much perceive the values are about the same...balanced trade. Or perhaps one party only has cash to offer so they will get 10 onions and give $10...a trade imbalance or trade deficit. If a nation is not going to produce onions, then paying cash for onions is fine and no one should complain about the trade imbalance. Then a question might be 'why can't we produce onions' to avoid buying from others? IMO most Americans and 100% of politicians, simply believe we can wave a magic wand and start producing onions for the same price we now pay to others...how hard can that be? But never do we follow up and start producing onions...we just attack others for selling onions to us...because the reality in the USA is it cost a boatload of money to produce onions, getting small profits, etc. and from a BUSINESS perspective, no matter the politicians magic-wand, who wants to invest in an iffy business/market? And when the dust settles, even if a legitimate business model could work in the USA...good luck finding American workers! Then we produce onions in the USA using immigrant workers and the complaining just continues...'they're taking our jobs'! Or if the process can be automated then a minimal amount of labor is necessary...how dare those farmers buy tractors and equipment to take our jobs?

Bottom line IMO; The US, and it's whiny people, need to do a reality check and decide precisely what we wish to produce in the USA, then set forth to do it competitively with all other world players. The reason there are no manufacturing jobs to bring back is because through our collective behavior we have lost those jobs for good!

 

Unfortunately your confidence in this economic system is unwarranted. The problem is far more fundamental than you realize. Consumption (demand) is crashing compared to what is needed to maintain a robust capitalist economy. Consequently there are over 1,000 big store locations closing as companies struggle to cut back on costs so that the bottom line can be improved in the face of the decline in consumption.

J.C. Penneys - 138 locations closing
Macy’s - 68
K-Mart - 108
Sears - 42
H.H. Gregg - 88
MC Sports - 68
Gander Mountain - 32
Radio Shack - 187
Payless - 500

http://usat.ly/2nMSNrt

Get ready for the next crash. It will be worse than 2008 and may even make the G.D. look good. And it's probably coming this year.

 

Read it and weep:

http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/08/26...rove-america-helped-saddam-as-he-gassed-iran/

 

Fer

Fear mongering.

Jobs have been created since two years. See BLS stats here. Where have you been?

If you can't find one, more than likely it's because you haven't the right credentials ...

 

LOL!
1) The ratio in your link is no where near what it was pre-crash in 2006-7.

2) The jobs created have been largely part-time and they don't pay what jobs used to pay. Why else do you think real median wages have been flat for 40 years?

I retired 9 years ago and am doing very nicely thank you. My wife and I are planning our next "vacation" right now. Our new big home in the country on acreage is finished and paid for. Time for some recreation.

 

That largely has to be the case unless you want international trade to go back to being in gold again.

 

The above comments show your ignorance of how the BLS collects its data.

You don't like the data, so you challenge its authenticity.

Not even nearly good-enough as a response. Try harder ...

 

Were it only so.

The fact of the matter is that the smaller countries (unless they have mineral deposits) do not have foreign currency deposits - so they depend upon "financial aid" in order to import goods that are, for the most part, national necessities (like hospital supplies).

There is a balance of trade amongst larger trading entities, namely the US and the EU. But when a "China" comes along, with its much lower wages, they wipe out production of the low-end goods. (This is what happened from 1991 on to the US, when the Bamboo Curtain came crashing down.)

China will remain the preferred supplier of electronic goods, but even Apple is now diversifying its production to other countries that "learn" how to produce quality-products.

From the 1990s onward, Americans LOVED the cheapER products and bought them - thus "exporting jobs to the Far East". China is now having the very same problem with countries like Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand that have even cheaper production costs.

That's the way of the world, and why we should concentrate on what we do best in the US. That is services sold to Americans living in the US, which account for the bulk of our GDP today.

We have a strong manufacturing business, but it is in developed technologies (like arms or civilian aircraft). That is, it is highly specialized - and it even has learned to produce its technologies abroad in order to enter markets.

Nonetheless, America has become a SERVICES market-economy - for which a higher level of competence/skills is necessary.

 

The bamboo curtain also crashed down on the car making business, and heavy machinery . China makes everything and so much cheaper, that quality isn't a deciding factor any more. I was referring to more basic trade balance stuff. When we sell stuff to Pakistan, they'll sell us rice, which we already grow. And SE Asia sells tinned tropical fruit which we also produce.. this undercuts our own growers.
Can a country survive , by depending on its domestic market? I don't know enough about economics to to say.
I do wonder what will happen when Venezuela collapses, or will there be a revolution? Will that destabilise the rest of South America?

 

Apparently you can't read graphs. I thought we were on the same side. My mistake. But maybe I can help you with your graph anyway. What do you see in it?

 

The labor cost differential between the US and China is almost completely offset by other costs. There really isn't much of a reason to produce there instead of the US in terms of labor costs. It is something different than that.

Unfortunately, I think your comment about the service economy is wrong. The services people consume largely require the same or lower levels of competence and skill than the past. Instead of buying Paula Deen pots and pans, they are eating at her restaurant. People are eating out a LOT more than they used to. This creates very low wage jobs.

 

A MIXED BAG

Doing business in China is a mixed-bag. The Chinese want their people to be trained to gain independence from foreign companies.

Both Boeing and Airbus have created manufacturing plants in China for their low-end (smaller capacity) aircraft. It was the sine-qua-non for "selling" their commercial aircraft in that particular Chinese market - and an absolute necessity because the market is exploding.

The Chinese have renewed almost entirely their rail and road structure, employing contractors from abroad with the necessary experience. Yes, they were training Chinese engineers at the same time.

Yes, but that also has a consequence. The obesity rate of Americans is skyrocketing. Which is only going to add to medical bills and the revenue to both Private Insurance companies and HC-practitioners. Total Health Care costs in the US will only increase as a result. So, what is the gain?

See the obesity state-rates here: Adult Obesity in the United States

MY POINT?

Service industries is the predominant employer in the US - very close to 90% from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. (See here.) Note that "Goods producing" accounted for only 12.7% of jobs nationally.

With the advent of the Internet we have been moving ineluctably from the Industrial Age to the Information Age. Yes, this has caused major employment disruption. But that Donald Dork should have used that fact as a ploy to get elected is a Major Calamity for the US. The US had been "creating jobs" since two-years before he took office this year. (See the history of the Employment-to-population Ratio here.)

Nonetheless, unemployment is down to record long-term levels, so those complaining are those who can't find jobs where they live because they do not have the necessary credentials.

The Donald will do nothing of any real consequence, because the factors that improve obtaining work depend almost uniquely upon Level of Education. Which is why Americans shot themselves - and their children - in the foot when they refused Hillary's offer of subsidizing PostSecondary Education for all families earning below $100K per year. (Given the median wage of $54K, that means the "average American family".)