It doesn't make sense for America to try to enlarge manufacturing as a portion of the economy. That's mainly because of technology.
When we think of manufacturing jobs, we imagine assembly lines populated by millions of blue-collar workers who had well-paying jobs with good benefits. I recently toured a U.S. factory with 2 employees and 400 computerized robots. Factory jobs are vanishing all over the world. Even China is losing them.
Economists took a look at employment trends and found that between 1995 and 2002 22 million manufacturing jobs disappeared. The US wasn't even the biggest loser. We lost 11%, the Japanese lost 16%. Brazil 20%, and China 15% drop.
A century ago 30% of Americans worked on a farm. New technologies have all made farming much more productive.
America also used to have lots of elevator operators, telephone operators, bank tellers and service-station attendants. Remember? Most have been replaced by technology. Supermarket check-out clerks are being replaced by automatic scanners. The Internet has taken over the routine tasks of travel agents, real estate brokers, stock brokers and even accountants. With digitization and high-speed data networks a lot of back office work can now be done more cheaply abroad.
Read on for more about jobs, manufacturing and the economy in our special report, "Made In America."
When we think of manufacturing jobs, we imagine assembly lines populated by millions of blue-collar workers who had well-paying jobs with good benefits. I recently toured a U.S. factory with 2 employees and 400 computerized robots. Factory jobs are vanishing all over the world. Even China is losing them.
Economists took a look at employment trends and found that between 1995 and 2002 22 million manufacturing jobs disappeared. The US wasn't even the biggest loser. We lost 11%, the Japanese lost 16%. Brazil 20%, and China 15% drop.
A century ago 30% of Americans worked on a farm. New technologies have all made farming much more productive.
America also used to have lots of elevator operators, telephone operators, bank tellers and service-station attendants. Remember? Most have been replaced by technology. Supermarket check-out clerks are being replaced by automatic scanners. The Internet has taken over the routine tasks of travel agents, real estate brokers, stock brokers and even accountants. With digitization and high-speed data networks a lot of back office work can now be done more cheaply abroad.
Read on for more about jobs, manufacturing and the economy in our special report, "Made In America."