Pksimon2007
Member
- May 2, 2015
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That's because it's light manufacturing with labor intensive work still done overseas. A lot of it is just final assemble and packing.The growing trend in American manufacturing is manufacturing components abroad with final assembly in the US. Often that final assemble is nothing more than putting the major assembly in a case, adding accessories, inspecting, packing, and shipping. Thus, most of labor is done overseas. I recently visited a manufacturing plant in Idaho. Today they are producing the same type of product they manufactured in 2000 with an employment of 95 versus 275 employees. The difference is most of the components are made overseas.
- Manufacturing jobs aren't what they once were anyway.
Many manufacturing jobs have, in fact, come back to the U.S. With our labor surplus, though, they don't pay squat.
- Agreed. I think increasing productivity has something to do with it as well. A lot of skilled manufacturing work is now done robotically. The biggest payoff in automation is when you can get machines to do your highest paid workers' jobs. That's the sweet spot.