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The reason we have fewer manufacturing jobs isn't because of automation. It's due to moving manufacturing overseas to exploit cheap labor. Also there are still

The reason we have fewer manufacturing jobs isn't because of automation. It's due to moving manufacturing overseas to exploit cheap labor. Also there are still many parts of this country that have factory jobs (I live in one of them, 10 different factories within half an hour drive.) and the majority have minimal automation.

DrewADesign 4y ago
A) That is the reason? Do you think automation played no part in large manufacturers ability to drop their highly skilled artisan workforce needed to perform key tasks? Does that really matter in the context of the conversation, which is that it's pretty naive to assume everything will just work out when workers are rendered obsolete because it's logistically easy and cheaper to get it elsewhere? B) You could live in the midst of 100 factories and that wouldn't change the decades of well-documented decline in US manufacturing jobs.
- ForestCritter 4y ago
  automation decimated the lesser skilled labor, not the high end workforce. The highly skilled artisans got replaced by the diminishing demand for high end goods over cheap automation goods.
  - DrewADesign 4y ago
    >> The highly skilled artisans got replaced by the diminishing demand for high end goods over cheap automation goods. So... cars aren't as high-end as they were during the malaise years?
    - ForestCritter 4y ago
      https://www.industryweek.com/the-economy/trade/article/22024695/how-trade-policies-led-to-the-decline-of-american-manufacturing https://www.industryweek.com/the-economy/trade/article/22024...
      - ForestCritter 4y ago
        here is another article outlining loss of manufacturing to other countries. https://www.industryweek.com/leadership/article/22026136/hope-is-not-a-plan-the-myth-of-american-manufacturing https://www.industryweek.com/leadership/article/22026136/hop...
        DrewADesign 4y ago
        Did you just pull these up from a random google search? I stopped reading the first one once I saw it's bibliography starts at the Church of God newspaper and low-quality wikipedia articles and gets less useful from there. Even though the wikipedia page for the second publication cites no sources and simultaneously claims to have been founded in the 19th century and 1970, it seems more sanely reasoned. However, I don't see how it supports your argument in any way. In fact, the author seems to be just as concerned about automation as I am, which is more than others: William Strauss, a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, stated that “on average, manufacturing output has been growing 3.1% annually over the past 63 years. Automation has enabled U.S. manufacturers to produce significantly more with fewer workers than they did in previous decades. Today, 177 workers can generate as much output as 1,000 plant employees could produce in 1950. Far from a cause for concern, the dramatic loss in manufacturing jobs should be seen as a key metric of success.” Strauss under-plays the effect on all workers who lose in this game, and he doesn’t even mention what the loss of manufacturing will do to R& D or exports. I wouldn't call R&D a generally low-skill job loss concern. Beyond that I didn't see anything that addressed your argument. Please enlighten me.

DrewADesign 4y ago

A) That is the reason? Do you think automation played no part in large manufacturers ability to drop their highly skilled artisan workforce needed to perform key tasks? Does that really matter in the context of the conversation, which is that it's pretty naive to assume everything will just work out when workers are rendered obsolete because it's logistically easy and cheaper to get it elsewhere? B) You could live in the midst of 100 factories and that wouldn't change the decades of well-documented decline in US manufacturing jobs.

ForestCritter 4y ago
automation decimated the lesser skilled labor, not the high end workforce. The highly skilled artisans got replaced by the diminishing demand for high end goods over cheap automation goods.
- DrewADesign 4y ago
  >> The highly skilled artisans got replaced by the diminishing demand for high end goods over cheap automation goods. So... cars aren't as high-end as they were during the malaise years?
  - ForestCritter 4y ago
    https://www.industryweek.com/the-economy/trade/article/22024695/how-trade-policies-led-to-the-decline-of-american-manufacturing https://www.industryweek.com/the-economy/trade/article/22024...
    - ForestCritter 4y ago
      here is another article outlining loss of manufacturing to other countries. https://www.industryweek.com/leadership/article/22026136/hope-is-not-a-plan-the-myth-of-american-manufacturing https://www.industryweek.com/leadership/article/22026136/hop...
      - DrewADesign 4y ago
        Did you just pull these up from a random google search? I stopped reading the first one once I saw it's bibliography starts at the Church of God newspaper and low-quality wikipedia articles and gets less useful from there. Even though the wikipedia page for the second publication cites no sources and simultaneously claims to have been founded in the 19th century and 1970, it seems more sanely reasoned. However, I don't see how it supports your argument in any way. In fact, the author seems to be just as concerned about automation as I am, which is more than others: William Strauss, a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, stated that “on average, manufacturing output has been growing 3.1% annually over the past 63 years. Automation has enabled U.S. manufacturers to produce significantly more with fewer workers than they did in previous decades. Today, 177 workers can generate as much output as 1,000 plant employees could produce in 1950. Far from a cause for concern, the dramatic loss in manufacturing jobs should be seen as a key metric of success.” Strauss under-plays the effect on all workers who lose in this game, and he doesn’t even mention what the loss of manufacturing will do to R& D or exports. I wouldn't call R&D a generally low-skill job loss concern. Beyond that I didn't see anything that addressed your argument. Please enlighten me.