American Manufacturing Has Declined More Than Most Experts Have Thought

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michele-nashhoff/manufacturing-jobs_b_1382704.html

Posted: 03/28/2012 11:02 am

A new report released by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF) presents a strong case that manufacturing has declined more during the last decade than it did during the Great Depression of the 1930s. It's gratifying to finally see a well-respected non-partisan "think tank" release a report based on empirical data that corroborates what those of working in the manufacturing industry have experienced, about which I have been speaking and writing since 2003.

One of the main points of the report is that during the Great Depression, we lost 30.9% of manufacturing jobs, but in the decade of 2000-2010, we lost 33.1% of manufacturing jobs. It becomes more serious when you realize that in the Great Depression, manufacturing accounted for 43% of jobs lost and 34% of all jobs at the time, but now manufacturing only represents about 11% of all jobs, but nearly one-third of the job loss. This percentage loss represents 5.7 million manufacturing jobs. The report states:

"On average, 1,276 manufacturing jobs were lost every day for the past 12 years. A net of 66,486 manufacturing establishments closed, from 404,758 in 2000 down to 338,273 in 2011. In other words, on each day since the year 2000, America had, on average, 17 fewer manufacturing establishments than it had the previous day."

When you understand the multiplier effect of manufacturing jobs, creating 2-3 supporting jobs, this loss of manufacturing jobs represents 11 to 17 million jobs. The report states, "In fact, in January 2012 there were more unemployed Americans (12.8 million) than there were Americans who worked in manufacturing (just under 12 million)." No wonder we have the high local, state, and federal deficits that we are experiencing -- there are fewer taxpayers and more benefit collectors.

[Arctic Dave]

1. Obama didn't help these numbers out by signing more "free" trade agreements.

Bitch, moan and call me a meanie all you want to but that won't change the fact the he hasn't been all that great for blue collar workers.

[uponit7771]

6. You mean the ones inked by Bush that Obama had to reset against the word of the US

...government due to the agreements Bush signed being so horrible?

I call telling half truths about Obama to paint him in a negative light "obama bashing"

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-04/obama-sends-three-free-trade-agreements-to-congress-ending-four-year-wait.html

[Arctic Dave]

11. By this time next year we will be able to see who was right.

If history is a guide, I will accept your apology.

[Systematic Chaos]

2. You had me right up until "...experts have thought."

[provis99]

3. yes, but we got great McDonald's and WalMart jobs in return!!

[obxhead]

5. Computers are taking more and more of those jobs as well.

Hell McDonalds was even testing call center workers in India operating the drive thru speaker.

[Populist_Prole]

4. They've also tried to whitewash the decline over the years as due to automation/productivity gains

They've had to change their talking points through the years as one excuse after the other couldn't explain away the loss of the industrial base due to globalization. Trust us, they say, this time we'll get right.

It sure didn't help their argument that many in the same circle say that manufacturing is something the US no longer needs to do.

Now that they've become fattened due to labor arbitrage, they no longer really need to "sell" globalization. "Trust us" has become "Fuck you".

[madrchsod]

7. "....in my home town...

&feature=relmfu

this shit has been going on since the mid 70`s. i did research on this issue by going through the IAM news letters. the first real mention of this problem was first written about in the early 75 . when wimpy took over as president he started publishing about the 1% by 77 or so. whimpy was way ahead of the curve. great man and a great union president. proud to be a member of the IAM from 73-79. best job,money , benefits i`ve ever had.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_W._Winpisinger

[Hawkowl]

8. This is an epitaph

Like climate change, I believe we are beyond the tipping point. The jobs are gone because the plants and equipment have been shipped overseas, AND the generational institutional knowledge on how to make things has skipped a generation. We as a nation do not know how to make things anymore. We push papers, we defraud investors, we sell shit, and create entertainment.

We are beyond the point of simply throwing out tax subsidies to encourage manufacturing. We no longer have the capability. We have been become a third world nation bereft of institutional knowledge of "how to".

[Ikonoklast]

9. The United states is STILL the largest manufacturing economy on the face of this planet.

We produce one fifth of every manufactured product on Earth.

China will soon surpass us, but only in gross terms, not in per capita or value added terms.

Any other country would gladly have our manufacturing output if they could.

[quakerboy]

10. I have heard this before.

I struggle with the idea that this is apparently a numerical truth, when what I see in reality does not seem to bear it out.

What exactly do we make that is sustaining these numbers? Outside of the food industry and art, I do not know a single person who works in manufacturing. I know there is one plant here in Portland that makes solar panels, and I am sure there are other things.

But if I go to any store in a mall, its somewhere in between tough and impossible to find any products that were made in the US. Certainly no textiles and few if any electronics. The hardware store isnt much better. When I was considering power tools, out of all the saws, drills, sanders, etc, 2 models were made in the US. buying other tools and bits, I find the same to be true.

I do a little better looking at product lables in REI, but I am guessing that sleepingbags and high tech tents are not a huge market world wide. Go somewhere like best buy or fry's electronics, and I think it would be challenging to find much of anything made in the US. Certainly not the TV's, not many if any of the appliances, computers, etc.

We do make some cars. What else?

[Ikonoklast]

13. We no longer make a great many of the lower-value manufactured products, but

we have a commanding lead in high-value manufactured products.

We are still the world leader in many categories; aerospace, farming equipment, heavy mining and mineral extraction machinery, diesel-electric locomotives, electrical switching equipment, medical and scientific devices, fertilizers, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, computer chip components and specialized industrial machine parts, gas turbines for generating electricity...among a great deal of other things.

India and China are furiously trying to move away from lower-value manufacturing and into the invention, design, and manufacture of higher-end products as quickly as possible as they see the lower value stuff as the dead-end that it is.

China produces enormous amounts of stuff that is labor-intensive, low margin items relying on high volume in order to make a profit, without much of an internal market to speak of.

They need us waaaay more than we need them.

[provis99]

14. Americam aerospace firms have been moving to India.

It's been going on for some years, now.
http://www.india-defence.com/reports-4678

Caterpillar has been moving most of its heavy equipment manufacturing to Brazil, Belgium, and India, it's parts manufacturing to Africa; and its HR service centers to Panama;
http://www.cat.com/cda/files/2456987/7/090110%20Caterpillar%20Expands%20in%20Brazil;%20Announces%20Location%20of%20New%20Facility%20and%20Investment%20in%20Piracicaba%20Operations.pdf
http://www.aggregateresearch.com/articles/4777/Caterpillar-to-set-up-outsourcing-venture-in-India-for-e-logistics-business.aspx
http://nearshoreamericas.com/tag/caterpillar/

John Deere farm equipment is moving to India;
http://www.outsaurus.com/2011/11/04/outsourced-john-deere/

as for locomotives, General Electric Transportation has been outsourcing its jobs and manufacturing to India since at least 2004:
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-118460807.html

the truth is, any "high-end" manufacturing done in the US can reduce its labor costs by moving out of the country, just as low-end manufacturing has already left.

[Recursion]

15. We make the machinery Chinese factories use to make iPods, to oversimplify it

When we say we're still the world's largest manufacturing country, that's by dollar value of goods produced, not tonnage. We also make a lot of cars, and we have some "craft manufacturing" that we're still top of the world at: guitars, guns, motorcycles, oddly enough certain types of ceramic beads, etc.

That said, our manufacturing output is still dwarfed by our agricultural output; the ag sector has something like a $100 billion trade surplus.

[Volaris]

12. but is this really news?

I mean, this is the result of 30 years of off-shoring, trickle-down, and tax cuts for the boss-man and his boards....aren't the current unemployment numbers reflective of ANY national economic system that does not maintain a manufacturing base? The unemployment numbers have REALLY looked like this for 15 years at least, it's just that Wall St. was able to cover that fact with (first) a Tech bubble and then a housing boom.....

[bhikkhu]

16. No, its a poorly written sideshow

which has little to do with off-shoring, China, the Grand Decline of the US, trickle-down economics or multi-national corporate greed - its just technology replacing workers:



Not saying its god or bad, but the same thing has been happening at a more or less steady pace since the moldboard plow and the water-wheel swept Europe around 1000 years ago.

Manufacturing is up, along with the jobs and growth it supports, but people working as labor in manufacturing is down, as more and more machines and automation is used. You can paint it as something else if you have an agenda to push and don't care much what you have to say to move things along.