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Showing Original Post only (View all)FiveThirtyEight: Manufacturing Jobs Are NEVER Coming Back. [View all]
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/manufacturing-jobs-are-never-coming-back/March 18, 2016
<snip>
A plea to presidential candidates: Stop talking about bringing manufacturing jobs back from China. In fact, talk a lot less about manufacturing, period.
....
Heres the problem: Whether or not those manufacturing jobs could have been saved, they arent coming back, at least not most of them. How do we know? Because in recent years, factories have been coming back, but the jobs havent.
....
a small but growing group of companies are shifting production back to the U.S. But the factories they build here are heavily automated, employing a small fraction of the workers they would have a generation ago.
</snip>
So, yes, even if companies return manufacturing to the US, they will not employ anywhere near the amount of human workers that they once did.
Thus, let us say a company once employed 5,000 people in manufacturing, then moved to China in the late 90s or early 2000s, and then came back 15 or 20 years later to re-open a factory in the US again. It would not employ 5,000 people again. It would be more like 500 people, 10 percent of original, as the new factory would be mostly automated.
Then there are the well known tech companies like Amazon. Amazon.com builds and gets a dozen new gigantic warehouses in the US to help with increased online shopping and use of FBA (Fulfilled By Amazon). That doesn't mean it will suddenly increase the human labor. If one ever looked at how an Amazon warehouse operates, there are robots that go around and automatically pick orders from shelves, using defined travel lanes and scanned barcodes. So, instead of employing 10,000 new people to work at these 12 warehouses, they employ several hundred while the robots do most of the work.
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That is why all the big companies ate their competition and now are one massive company.
Rex
Mar 2016
#37
And the only actual answer is for the profits that do exist to be distributed
Jackie Wilson Said
Mar 2016
#126
If Congress functioned it might be better, hard to say since they refuse to follow their own laws.
Rex
Mar 2016
#138
We need to stop sentimentalizing manufacturing jobs; there's nothing magical about them
Recursion
Mar 2016
#2
good point, and of course another slant on the need for higher minimum wage
phantom power
Mar 2016
#17
That will make little difference when most of the work is done by machines nt
anigbrowl
Mar 2016
#106
And before the 1930s they didn't pay that. That was a social and political outcome
Recursion
Mar 2016
#91
I would imagine that a BMI would actually create enough economic stability...
Humanist_Activist
Mar 2016
#120
And it didn't happen anyway because iron prices are too low for it to turn a profit.
Zynx
Mar 2016
#34
Bernie Is The Only Antidote To Rampant DNC DWS DLC HRC Third-Way Corporatist Corruption
cantbeserious
Mar 2016
#26
Following WWII I've read, part of the Allied terms and Marshall Plan was to make sure
appalachiablue
Mar 2016
#87
I thought I heard something about robots replacing fast food workers at some point.
Vinca
Mar 2016
#41
There are self-service ordering kiosks at some fast food restaurants. I've seen them at McD's,
4lbs
Mar 2016
#58
They have bots now that will prepare your order, fresh on the spot. They only thing preventing
Purveyor
Mar 2016
#76
It will be interesting to see how they handle custom orders. For example, at Burger King, you can
4lbs
Mar 2016
#90
If a job can be automated, it will be. Service industries are already under asaualt.
Agnosticsherbet
Mar 2016
#42
Or perhaps it's time to get past the idea of "work" in general and have a guaranteed minimum income
Spider Jerusalem
Mar 2016
#67
The US (2%), Canada (18%) and Italy (3%) gained manufacturing jobs from 1991-2000.
pampango
Mar 2016
#47
Thanks. AND only 2 countries trade less than the US - Sudan and the Central African Republic.
pampango
Mar 2016
#89
Make it more expensive to chug a product over the largest ocean on the planet and they will.
Spitfire of ATJ
Mar 2016
#50
Bernie talks about rebuilding our aging crumbling infrastructure and a massive environmental
Dont call me Shirley
Mar 2016
#51
But it is an example of how US corporate expansion doesn't necessarily mean a tidal wave of new jobs
4lbs
Mar 2016
#56
We love workers & jobs. Must be progressive & realistic and avoid being doctrinaire
Bernardo de La Paz
Mar 2016
#60
If we want to get the jobs back we need to act more like a Third World country.
jalan48
Mar 2016
#63
They are not coming back to Germany, Sweden or Canada. I doubt they will go Third World
pampango
Mar 2016
#66
The only thing preventing a computer from taking my job is computers still suck at natural...
Humanist_Activist
Mar 2016
#73
Mine's customer service, and at this time, people are surprised I'm not a computer...
Humanist_Activist
Mar 2016
#115
That's great! My coworkers and I have watched videos of the inverted pendulum
cheapdate
Mar 2016
#95
Here's another point. No one would pay the increased prices for American made only products.
Yavin4
Mar 2016
#98
Any JOB in the USA (or the WORLD, for that matter) should pay a LIVING WAGE. eom
Hiraeth
Mar 2016
#99
"We'd better re-think what it means to 'work'; get GMI, retrain, embrace change, blah blah blah"
HughBeaumont
Mar 2016
#110
Why not, people have the right to know the truth, so we can work on solutions...
Humanist_Activist
Mar 2016
#113
He did acknowledge their frustration and need for solutions in the full article, i stand corrected
LettuceSea
Mar 2016
#114
That's the reason why there are rumblings of talk about Universal Basic Income....
Humanist_Activist
Mar 2016
#117
That is the biggest obstacle, that's why its best to talk about solutions now...
Humanist_Activist
Mar 2016
#122
Less workers should mean less labor cost and the product cheaper for consumer. But, have
B Calm
Mar 2016
#121
A car is cheaper after inflation now than in 1975. What does "keeping pace" mean?
Recursion
Mar 2016
#141
Nope. The $33,560 includes light trucks (ie, SUVs), which weren't a category in 1975
Recursion
Mar 2016
#143