Reich on the Future of Manufacturing Jobs

Economist and former Clinton adviser Robert Reich has a succinct comment on his blog on the future of manufacturing jobs in the U.S.. In it he argues convincingly that the loss of manufacturing jobs has little to do with foreign competition and much to do with increased productivity.

He reminds us that a hundred years ago, 30% of the labor force worked in agriculture as opposed to two percent now. It is not that the U.S. stopped growitng food, but that the productivity of farmers increased exponentially.

The same, he argues, will hold true for manufacturing. The days when much of the working population laboured on assembly lines are simply over. He gives this example

When we think of manufacturing jobs, we tend to imagine old-time assembly lines populated by millions of blue-collar workers who had well-paying jobs with good benefits. But that picture no longer describes most manufacturing. I recently toured a U.S. factory containing two employees and 400 computerized robots. The two live people sat in front of computer screens and instructed the robots. In a few years this factory won't have a single employee on site, except for an occasional visiting technician who repairs and upgrades the robots.

So these jobs will not return with the end of the recession. And they cannot be protected by tarrif barriers or currency manipulation. Reich also suggests that rather than trying to save manufacturing jobs that will inevitably be lost, we should be focusing on bettering the lot of low wage personal service jobs -- retail, home care and the like.

For me, one of the real signs of hope in the U.S. is the S.E.I.U. led by Andy Stern. Just as unions were by far the most important social program for blue collar workers in the post-war period, so too must they be the key to the middle class for service workers. And as we know from the last sixty years, a mass middle class is also the ticket to economic prosperity and stability.