Is U.S. Manufacturing Creating Jobs?

[iwforumadmin]

A reader comments on

Is U.S. Manufacturing Creating Jobs? (http://www.industryweek.com/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=12394)

Having watched the manufacturing sector in the Midwest continue to go "offshore", I can not understand how jobless claims would not increase?

But I do know of many people who have simply given up on finding another manufacturing job.

They have finally ran out of unemployment benefits, and that was why they are no longer "counted".

But instead, they have now taken up other forms of employment.

Real estate agents. Car salesmen. Retail stores. Just about anything except manufacturing!

Construction is not even an option for many engineers since there age and background is against them.

For those people who feel "high end jobs" are safe, and that only low end manufacturing is being sent offshore, take a good look around your current place of employment. Engineers and scientists, along with "cost effective" plant locations, are making the American worker a "burden" rather than an asset.

It is a good thing many of the baby boomers are retiring. Before they get laid-off.
----
R. Juras, Illinois

[Abogle]

Opportunites for recent college grads in engineering fields are dwindling as well as starting wages have declined.

Many anecdotal stories of engineers installing cable or fixing copiers for a living if not getting out of mfg altogether.

Manufacturing is creating jobs, but not in the US, all the jobs and capital investment is taking place in Asia.

As the old "joke" use to go Nafta means No American Factories Taking Applications

[strout0123]

Just looking at unemployment statistics can be misleading if you think about salary or wage. An engineer who goes from $100K/ year to $10/hour is still considered employed, yet clearly does not have the same standard of living.

[Bill]

Just looking at unemployment statistics can be misleading if you think about salary or wage. An engineer who goes from $100K/ year to $10/hour is still considered employed, yet clearly does not have the same standard of living.

Oh come on now.....there can't be that many engineers and hi-tech workers out of work...if there were how could Gary Shapiro, Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) chief executive, make the following statement:

Allowing talented immigrants to come work for U.S. technology firms is vital to keeping the industry vibrant and innovative, Shapiro said. "When did we stop welcoming the best and brightest to this country?" he said.

"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!"

[Paul in TN]

See if I can at least shed a little light on this grim topic. I work in one of those industries hardest hit by Chinese imports. We make money, and we even successfully sell to bog box companies, at a profit!! How do we do this? We stayed out of debt as a company. We keep our continuous improvement system as a "hard money" projects only system. No KPO team,(too expensive), and sorry consultants, we don't need you or want you because we cannot afford your overhead. We look internally across the staff for ideas. The weekly Kaizen Blitz doesn't work if you want fast change, so we do "Kaizen Projects", which must show a monetary improvement or they are ditched.
We stay lean, we ship fast, we try to make the best product we can everyday. Our warehouses are small on purpose. We don't plan on building another one. In fact, as we grow, we'll take warehouse space for production space, and ship faster.
It's a constant battle but you can win it...

On the global front, there are a few silver linings. Think of this: There is NO nuclear powered freighter fleet, so ships floating goods from China to US are suffering soaring fuel increases, and passing them into the cost of a container. At some point, it will become cheaper to make it in the US - again.

Beijing will hold the price of gas artifically low for now, but wait until after the Olympics, when all the tourists are gone. Expect at least a 25% rise in gas prices. That will translate into higher prices, higher wages, and more than ever China will begin to look less like a bargain.

Eastern China has suffered two pay increases a year (mandated by Beijing) beginning in 2006. The populace is beginning to see the benefits of what we take for granted. Cars, cable tv, college, nice apartments/homes, good food, decent medical care. Only about 330 million of them are now like this. The other Billion or so is just waking up. But they will wake up, and they will demand the ability to make money. Inflation will become rampant. And with the one child policy Beijing will have to adjust to accomadate the older people. (Read more taxes = more wages) The 10% productivity growth we hear about so much also comes with about a 10% inflation increase, at least in the Eastern third of the country, where all the money is. Time is on our side.

Union County, South Dakota just passed, (by a narrow margin), to allow a refining company to start building the first refinery built in this country in what, 26 years?
Hopefully there will not be too much resistance. It buys us time to change fuels.

All is not lost. We're in a transition stage. Change is the only constant. Adjust with it or fail!

[yogi]

Just looking at unemployment statistics can be misleading if you think about salary or wage. An engineer who goes from $100K/ year to $10/hour is still considered employed, yet clearly does not have the same standard of living.

I fall into that class; $9.00/hr at walmart in the produce department. But let me start at the beginning.

I started in the army with a field radio repair course and took a correspondence course in radio & TV repair after I got out. I spent about the first 20 years of my working life gaining knowledge and experience in both the electronic and machine shop fields in a wide variety of jobs. In 1979 I started an industrial repair business and over the years branched out to design and engineering functions.

I ran my business succesfully until 2003 when I decided to rejoin the job market for the dual reasons of less work available in a shrinking economy and the need as I grew older for insurance and other benefits.

One of my customers found out that I was available and since I had served their Illinois plant for about 20 years they offered me a job as their maintenance and manufacturing engineer. I held that position from June of 2003 until September of 2006. I watched the company being run into the ground by the management of the corporation that owned the company I worked for until they could no longer afford a full time engineer. At that point I was let go for "economic reasons".

So I now found myself in Georgia instead of my native Illinois and out of work. Fortunately I had considerable savings to fall back on. But it turned out that I needed all of my savings and then some to survive. I attempted to start an industrial consulting business but it never took off because I also started to get very sick and the market for my services was pretty soft. To attempt to make a long story short; I ended up with a severe case of diverticulitis and atrial fibrilation in my heart. I finally got the heart under control with medication and had surgery for the diverticulitis in July of 2007.

At this point my resources were running pretty low and I had to still go through a recovery period from being so ill and having major surgery.

I was then looking at a VERY soft market for my services because we were in a presidential election year without a viable incumbent.

I still hope to either get a new position in my field or get my consulting business off the ground, but that won't happen until everyone settles down and realizes that the world did not come to an end just because their candidate didn't get elected.

So to make ends meet (fortunately I am collecting social security) I took a job with Walmart as a produce stocker.

Trust me when I tell you that as an industrial engineer my lifes goal was not to be shoving produce around at one of the big box stores for $9.00/hr. But sometimes you have to do what is neccessary to survive.

On the bright side though; my first week at work on a physically demanding job was pure hell but I am gaining my strength and health back better than I would as a desk jocky. I am noticing improvement in my stamina and feeling of well being on a daily basis now and realize that from a health standpoint the Walmart job was probably the best thing that could have happened to me. GOD does, it seems, work in mysterious ways.

[Abogle]

I put myself thru college stocking shelves and trimming produce in a supermarket back in the late 70s early 80s. I was making close to 9 buck an hour with full benefits back then - doesn't look like wages have gone up much in that industry. I was in tip top physical shape then to - physical labor does wonders for the weight and strength:)

However many years down the road I have a bum knee and often a sore back - probably a result of that

One thing I keep coming back to when I hear the tired myth that there is some so called skilled labor shortage. I know too many engineers that are out of the field altogether or are now underemployed, or doing grunt labor type jobs instead of the career they paid big bucks to learn in college. I recently heard somewhere (it may have been one of those Jeff Daniel's "Pure Michigan" spots) that Michigan has the highest per capita concentration of engineers and skilled workers in the nation, yet it also has the highest unemployment rate in the nation. So much for the theory that supply of skilled and educated workers somehow magically creates demand for them. 30 years of greedy management, bad economic and unfair trade policy are the primary culprits

[industrialuser]

Abogle,

Maybe the fairer statement is that there is a geographic skilled labor shortage. If there are, as you say, so many unemployed engineers in Michigan, why don't they go where the jobs are? Seems to me they are saying they'd rather be unemployed in Michigan than employed in the Southern states (where the jobs are). That speaks well for the state of Michigan, but unfair trade policy has nothing to do with engineers refusing to move around the country to go after jobs. And well-paying jobs.

You have a tendency to paint everything in all black or white. Nothing is rarely that simple.

[Abogle]

rather flippant of you to suggest to people in Michigan (or Indiana, or Ohio for that matter) to simply pick up and move somewhere else

Family and community ties often make relocation difficult if not totally out of the question for most people. This is one of the primary fallacies of the so called "mobility of labor" - it is not so mobile after all. Many companies no longer offer relocation assistance as part of a hiring package as they once did either according to an article posted here a while back. How is one supposed to sell their home in this real estate bust market as well?

By your same logic - why don't the businesses locate where the supply of labor is? Which is exactly what my point was. The supply siders seem to believe that if you create a supply of labor you magically create a demand for them - obviously my example of the industrial midwest/great lakes region disproves that theory. And those "southern" jobs are not paying all that well either - isn't that the reason most businesses relocated south to begin with - for the lower labor costs?

I understand there are always grey areas, it is you sir that seems to always have the "black and white" notions. I guess you consider using facts and observations to dispute commonly held misconceptions black and white?

It seems that businesses think too short term - they see low cost labor as the primary location criteria, then whine when they can't attract and retain the skilled and educated help needed to have the greatest efficiency and productivity

[Abogle]

Manufacturing has been shedding 41,000 jobs/month on avg for the last year according to the BLS

how can anyone possibly make the case that manufcaturing is adding jobs? even regionally?