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Brian Garrett, a casting operator, works on the factory floor at Quadrant, a high end plastic processor on Oct. 19 in Reading, Pennsylvania. Quadrant, a 70 year old company, employs more than 2000 people in 20 countries and is one of the few remaining manufacturers in the area to still provide stable jobs in an uncertain economy. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Exact numbers are hard to come by in the mysterious twists and turns of job losses and gains. Some claim that 2.1 million manufacturing jobs have been lost in the last 11 years, while others suggest it is more like 2.9 million.
Many manufacturing jobs were lost during economic downturns. This century, the U.S. experienced the first economic downturn in 2001, with the second only six years later. In 2001 alone, 2.9 million manufacturing jobs were lost, accounting for 17 percent of working individuals in the United States.
Losses continued with another 600,000 manufacturing jobs lost in 2008. Between 2001 and 2008, employment in themanufacturing sector declined by 21.9 percent.
The highest job losses were experienced by textile mills, which retrenched 59.6 percent of their workforce, followed by the apparel sector, which cut 58 percent of its employees, and then the leather and allied products sector, which cut 47.2 percent of its workforce. All other sectors were below 34.9 percent, according to a 2008 Economic and Budget Issue Brief by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
“Although the decline in manufacturing employment in recent years is not a departure from long-standing trends—the sector’s share of total employment has been falling steadily for more than half a century. … Employment in manufacturing (as reflected in the total number of hours worked) did not recover,” according to the CBO report.
More recent research attributes manufacturing job losses to automation, technological advances, outsourcing, and increased foreign competition. “Americans have to understand that people in other countries are willing to work harder for less,” according to an article on Global Economic Intersection, a website that fosters economic debate.
Manufacturing Sector Expanding
“Economic activity in the manufacturing sector expanded in September for the 26th consecutive month,” according to the Manufacturing ISM Report on Business, published by the Institute of Supply Management.
Out of 18 manufacturing sectors, two thirds reported growth in September. These were mainly the wood product and miscellaneous manufacturing sectors, including the food and beverage industries.
U.S. midsized manufacturers are predicting growth and not stagnation for the remainder of 2011, according to a survey conducted and released in September by Prime Advantage Corp., a buying consortium for manufacturers.The return to the United States of production that was outsourced years ago to foreign shores is expected to generate between 2 to 3 million U.S. jobs spanning many industrial sectors.
Executives took advantage of some free time and invested in research and development (R&D), which affects the manufacturing sector positively.
Louise O’Sullivan, CEO of Prime Advantage, said in a press release that companies that invested in R&D “are now reaping the benefits. 44 percent stated new products and/or new customers are fueling their growth.”
Small Businesses Returning to Made in America
“Stamping out products in Guangdong Province [China] is no longer the bargain it once was, and US manufacturing is no longer as expensive,” according to a 2011 article on Wired.com, an online periodical.
The article discussed the downside of having products produced in China with quality problems on the top of the list, which no matter how often addressed were never resolved. Also mentioned were the cost of shipping the product, rising wages, the Chinese regime’s demand for turning over propriety information and intellectual property, as well as political interference.
After making trips to China every few months, the head of Sleek Audio, a firm that produces high-end earphones, decided to bring production back to the United States. Although the earphones cost 50 percent more when manufactured in the United States, he chose a manufacturing partner just a few miles from his headquarters in Manatee County, Fla.
“Companies—particularly the small to medium-size businesses that make up the innovative guts of America’s technology industry—are taking a long, hard look at the downsides of extending their supply chains to the other side of the planet,” according to the Wired.com article.
Next … Manufacturers Return to the US
