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Old 08-01-2011, 03:15 PM
 
Location: Metro Detroit, Michigan
29,699 posts, read 24,780,162 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Americanwoman54 View Post
My heart goes out to all of you and all the others who are in the same boat. And all I see coming down the "pike" is even more lost jobs in the manufacturing sector. Incandescednt light bulbs no more so there goes those jobs as the others are being made in China (but why?); no more phone books, so there go those printing and ad selling jobs; a slow down of snail mail, so there goes those jobs; schools no longer buying paper textbooks so there goes those printing jobs and paper factories as well; and with so many stores having "self-service" checkout lanes, where are people actually going to work??? Can't companies/government see this and what technology added with "out-sourcing" is doing to this country???? Countries cannot just be service; they have to MAKE something to be sustainable. We are in a flippen mess, and we DO need to do something; but what??????
Manufacturing has added jobs for nearly a year straight. In fact, it's been one of the brighter spots in the economy for nearly 2 years now. Just because we don't make certain items, doesn't mean the entire sector will vanish.
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Old 08-01-2011, 04:39 PM
 
Location: Central Florida
973 posts, read 1,702,667 times
Reputation: 1110
Quote:
Originally Posted by andywire View Post
Manufacturing has added jobs for nearly a year straight. In fact, it's been one of the brighter spots in the economy for nearly 2 years now. Just because we don't make certain items, doesn't mean the entire sector will vanish.
May I ask in what fields and where??? I am curious. But I hope you don't mean the jobs that came back in the automotive field.
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Old 08-01-2011, 05:05 PM
 
Location: Metro Detroit, Michigan
29,699 posts, read 24,780,162 times
Reputation: 28386
Quote:
Originally Posted by Americanwoman54 View Post
May I ask in what fields and where??? I am curious. But I hope you don't mean the jobs that came back in the automotive field.
Fabrication, precision machining, some welding. GE has been adding tons of jobs back home finally. Job shops that are capable of servicing multiple sectors have been doing pretty good and have been hiring. Manufacturing of goods for the energy sector has remained strong, hydraulic and diesel has been kicking as well as agricultural, medical and military. Businesses that are diversified stand a much better chance of surviving recessions. These are also sectors that require great precission (sometimes within .0001 of an inch), strong quality control, accurate documentation and tracking... These are things that American businesses excel at and can offer.

Manufacturing of items such as toasters, blenders, cell phones... We can't do it cheap enough being that we are a high wage country. You could pay your workers minimum wage and we still couldn't compete in price. Let the Chinese have that work, because we can't make any money on it. Those jobs have been leaving for years, and we can do without them. Of course, the consumer gets what they pay for.

When speaking of automotive, jobs have been eliminated largely due to technology. It takes a man and a machine to do the work it would have taken 100 men to do a decade or two ago. It wasn't long ago that you had a worker sitting in front of a stamp or press doing one piece at a time, sometimes cutting blanks before hand on a bandsaw. Now an operator loads multiple machines with precut stock while the machine stamps continuously. Sometimes the operator can just load one end of a roll of sheet metal and let the machine gobble it up. Much more efficient and has eliminated the need for tons of workers.

The low skill, brainless jobs have been sent overseas never to return. The mentally demanding, high skill level jobs are the ones that have been returning, or never left in the first place. We will never completely loose manufacturing as long as companies here can complete the work within a week and have it in the customers hot little hands by Friday. As long as companies want inventories to be low, and operations to be lean, manufacturing will always have it's place. None the less, it is a challenging time to operate a manufacturing outfit, but that's a whole other topic
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