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Can Trump Turn Back the Clock on U.S. Manufacturing?
394 sats \ 3 comments \ @jakoyoh629 16 Apr econ
One of the stated goals of the Trump administration’s tariff offensive is to bring back manufacturing jobs to the United States. But is that possible or even desirable in this day and age, when the vast majority of American workers have long moved on from manual labor towards knowledge-based jobs in the service sector? Recent surveys have shown that Americans have little interest in returning to factory jobs and even if they had, their wage demands would make it impossible for U.S. companies to be profitable.
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https://www.statista.com/chart/34316/share-of-manufacturing-jobs-in-us-employment/
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56 sats \ 2 replies \ @Undisciplined 16 Apr
This is probably as silly an idea as trying to get people back into agriculture.
Technology advances and people develop more valuable uses for their time.
Accompanying the decline in the figure has been an upward trend in manufactured goods, exactly like we saw with agriculture a hundred years ago.
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26 sats \ 1 reply \ @jakoyoh629 OP 16 Apr
Let's be real, the States has been banking on cheap labor from overseas for decades. Think farming and textiles, that's the story. Trying to rewind that could look like a major L. Maybe the tech scene is where it's at to turn things around.
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27 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 16 Apr
Even counting cheap labor in agricultural, total employment is a tiny fraction of what it was, despite more mouths to feed and increasing exports. It's a productivity story far more than an exploitation story.
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