The problem is that factory work is one of those jobs that many Americans just won’t do if they have other options at similar or better pay.
I worked at a Scotts factory putting together spray bottles for Miracle Gro and I only lasted a few days before I quit. The physical toll it took on my body and the pace I had to work at to keep up were too much for me and I ended up having a panic attack while at work as a result. I then went back to working as a security guard for similar pay and it worked out much better for me.
Employers would really have to try hard to entice people to do the back-breaking labor that we outsource to other countries or have immigrants do if they want American citizens to do those jobs instead. And I don’t think they can afford to do that.
In the meat-packing plants here in Kansas (which are essentially factories), the jobs pay exceedingly well. But very few Americans are willing to relocate to rural areas, even when the pay is great and COL is low. But that isn’t a problem for immigrants from Central and South America and Africa.
That’s very true. Most of the other employees on the assembly line with me were immigrants who knew little English but were able to handle the work easily in comparison to someone like me. Many of them were significantly older than me as well.
I knew some people from Garden City, Kansas and they worked at what was IBP. Very damaging work. Very very hard and dangerous. Lots of missing fingers. They said one could only really last about a five years before you were physically, mentally , and spiritually finished. The pay back then was poor with no benefits, but obviously was attractive enough still for immigrants.
Sounds like the core issue with factory labor being fast-paced and “back breaking” is that there are no regulations and non-corrupt enforcers to ensure factories operate at a pace and risk and effort level that is compatible with the long term health of the workforce.
Which isn’t really true. There are rules and enforcement. Some places are better than others but having been in a zillion workplaces in Canada and the USA, I’ve yet to see a job people can’t do. Some folks are better at it than others, that’s all.
Unemployment rate in manufacturing is about 3%. Any worker who wants to get back into manufacturing can get back into it right now. Manufacturing’s problem has more to do with finding labor than with finding markets, and it’s been that way for a while.
Fun fact. Jan 2001 we had 17.1M manufacturing jobs. Jan 2009 we had 12.6M. Jan 2017 we had 12.3M Jan 2021 12.1M, Jan 2025 12.8M.
12 years of Republican presidents 4.7M jobs lost, 12 years of Democrats 0.4M jobs added. It gets worse the further you go back too. Our peak, the very most manufacturing jobs our country has ever had was under… Jimmy Carter. 1979 was a banner year for USA manufacturing.
I find it helpful to recall that Trump gained his fortune in real estate, which is in large part an endless series of zero-sum transactions that are exercises in extracting concessions from the other party, in pretending you’re being cheated so that you can cheat the other party.
There is some truth there about the opportunity cost, but I don’t think you are allowing for the fact that in, say China, they may have children working in assembly lines. Or in Cambodia, there’s no EPA and no OSHA. There probably aren’t a lot of training mandates about not harassing people and behaving ethically. Also, they live at a lower standard of living. Maybe they walk or ride a bike or take public transportation instead of needing two cars to get around.
So workers are just paid less, and company overhead is less, and that’s before you push to sweatshop conditions.
Because maybe Canadian sewing plants are decent workplaces, whereas there are (if Hollywood is to be believed) places in big US cities that are using immigrants in sweatshop conditions. Imagine in a country without OSHA. (So the US in a couple months.)
Remember the big Foxconn deal that happened during Trump 1.0?
We were going to bring manufacturing back to America! We were going to make TV’s and electronics right here! Trump even held a shovel!
The state and local governments, using tax dollars, built roads and infrastructure into the site. They came up with a huge package of incentives and tax breaks, including payroll subsidies for the tens of thousands of new jobs that were allegedly coming in. Then Foxconn put up a few buildings, one that was shaped like a high tech globe.
Now, almost 8 years later, Foxconn claims to employ around a thousand people although no one is really clear on what is being manufactured. The do manage to keep the employment numbers just high enough to collect their subsidies, which are still substantial even though they’ve been reduced.
This is the playbook that is being used for bringing manufacturing into the US, public - private partnerships where the public bears most of the cost and the private entities reap most of the profits. In theory the payoff for the communities takes the form of increased tax revenue from all the new gainfully employed workers.
In practice, it doesn’t always work out, and there is a lot of risk involved for the communities. When a major company builds a large manufacturing facility, they require substantial upfront investment from the community and the government.
If there really is an available labor pool in need of employment and market for the goods being produced, there are good deals to be made……but when the factories are being built because GO TRUMP, AMERICA RULES! and the business fails, the financial loser isn’t the factory owner, it’s everyone.
I am absolutely allowing for that fact. All aspects of a country’s situation enter into its opportunity costs. Having low-wage unskilled labor makes a country’s opportunity cost lower for doing things like simple garment manufacture.
Cambodia is a smarter place to make clothing not because they are cheaper than Canadian clothing manufacturers but because they are cheaper than other things Cambodians could be doing. It would be much less efficient a use of their resources to try to make, say, aircraft parts. Canadians, however, are comparatively much better at making aircraft parts than Canadians making clothing. So we make aircraft parts.
Evan if Cambodians can make literally anything cheaper than we can, it still makes sense to trade with them. Whatever they are comparatively less efficient at doing, it makes no sense for them to do, and vice versa. It’s like if you were a terrific doctor, but you were also a slightly better typist than your receptionist. Would it make sense for you to do the data entry? Of course not. You are much better off trading with the receptionist by selling your doctor skills to pay them to do the data entry, and your receptionist is much better off spending their time doing that job than they are trying to be their own physician.
It’s right there in the name Fox Con . The fradulant news network with con attached to it. They have not been hiding this shit, instead they are laughing at the american people for trusting them.
I think some people have a bit of an old fashioned image of how manufacturing works in China.
Yes I’m sure there still are sweatshops and exploitation but that’s far from the norm and not the reason manufacturing is so cheap there
Chinese factory workers’ salaries have been higher than many of their neighbours, and higher than much of subsaharan Africa, or parts of South America for many years at this point.
But China retains a competitive advantage thanks to it’s planned economy and economies of scale. A mousetrap factory can be placed between a spring factory and the lumber yard, and use subsidized steel and wood.
And, in terms of trade, much of the reason for China becoming a threat to the US is the move towards higher tech and services. No one would care much if China was still just sweatshops.
Caveat 1: Trump would still care, but that’s because he’s an idiot
Caveat 2: It’s not the only reason, and things like China monopolizing rare earth production is a legitimate national security concern.
Automation - in large part that is where the jobs went.
Best I understand, more manufacturing is happening in the US than ever, but very few workers.
I drive past a massive specialty metal production (high temperature jet engine quality) plant almost daily.
Employees are mostly post production quality control, very few production workers.
It is probably the case that I have been in more factories in North America can anyone on the SDMB.
There’s a lot of factory workers out there and in fact there are more jobs available than people willing to do them. It’s definitely true that technology has reduced the number of workers you need - that’s true in MANY jobs, like farming or administrative assistance. It doesn’t reduce the overall number of jobs though. It just pushes value to other jobs.
Not meaning to dispute your expertiese; you are our expert. But as a former business guy, albeit not in manufacturing, I always like to point out a common error in business guys’ thinking.
You said:
When the reality is closer to
and in fact there are more jobs available than people willing to do them for the price that business owner has decided they’re willing to pay.
In one hell of a lot of cases the jobs could be filled without destroying the business’s profits. The owners just need to settle for less ROI.
In manufacturing, the margins on labor on the floor are already pretty thin and many are carrying employees who are pretty much just break even, because it gets the jobs done and they make money thanks to more productive employees.
“They should just accept lower ROI” is of course what many - especially smaller manufacturers are already doing. It’s not some sort of mystery.