[CraigJPerry]

Interesting that you say that, my understand of the data is that manufacturing output has never been higher - ignoring lingering Covid shocks - https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IPMANSICS

But because productivity is higher https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M0100CUSM070NNBR - which doesn’t mean the workers are working harder: a man with a shovel can work as hard as he likes, but he’s never going to compete with the business owner who invested in productivity and gave his worker an excavator.

Therefore employment in the sector is down due to increased productivity, not decreased output.

But increased productivity is a radically different thing from decreased output. A claim that manufacturing should employ more, in the face of increased productivity, That’s a claim that manufacturing should replace other endeavours in the economy which, is a complex claim at the very least.

[concerndc1tizen]

Nice charts, but M0100CUSM070NNBR is from 1948 to 1963 :)

[CraigJPerry]

Eh, well, this is a bit embarrassing! On mobile, I can’t local a chart that covers the post war until now, best I can find is https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OUTMS which shows late 80s onwards BUT shows a drop at 2008 onwards which goes against my argument (notwithstanding the big gap between both charts)

[wakawaka28]

The nominal value of highly automated processes has never been higher. Meanwhile, ordinary people are not able to find as many good jobs as they once did. Wages in almost every industry are stagnant at best, at least when adjusted for inflation.

>A claim that manufacturing should employ more, in the face of increased productivity, That’s a claim that manufacturing should replace other endeavours in the economy which, is a complex claim at the very least.

It is a complex claim but I'll make it really simple. We import most of the things we rely on. Everything from plastic toys to car parts to critical medicines are all imported. Letting yourself become totally dependent on other countries while our STEM grads are underemployed, and would-be manufacturing line workers are forced to do bullshit like driving for Uber, is no way to run a country. It is going to backfire one day unless there is a major reversal in the trend.

[bluGill]

Engineers are not ordinary jobs though and so the plite of the 'common man' is irrelavent.

[wakawaka28]

You can't have so many engineer jobs unless you have manufacturing, and if you did have manufacturing then there would be "common man" manufacturing jobs too. It's all connected. Every job market that is really critical for national security is depressed by this outsourcing and importation of cheaper goods and labor.

[bluGill]

because of automation there is often a lot more engineering jobs. one 'man' with a laser cutter can do the work of 50 with saws.

[wakawaka28]

Sure, but when you don't even have the automated process within your country then there are approximately zero jobs created of any kind. The Chinese own their own factories and make much of their own manufacturing equipment, even exporting some of it. We should be producing more of our own stuff and creating meaningful jobs for our citizens. Working on an assembly line or as a maintenance worker in a factory might strike some people as menial, but the alternatives for people with the same level of education are mostly worse.

[TheSpiceIsLife]

I’ve drove a laser cutter for ten years, I wouldn’t call it engineering, more glorified dump truck driver, with a temperamental dumb truck that is more art than science to operate.

The technology has got a shinier interface since I started, but the fundamental problems are the same.

When it breaks, you call the service technician, unless your the one in a thousand employee who happens to be a boilermaker by trade, an IT service technician and software neonate, also handy with a soldering iron, can install and repair refraction systems, work on live mains safely, research and install additional power supply protection devices, lighting suppression, UPS, knows there way around layers 1 through 7…

And that company treated me like I was some kind of freak.

But yeah, generally a laser cutter operator pushes buttons, and empties catch trays if they’re lucky.

Engineers design the things, the operators are largely meat for the grinder.

[bluGill]

Exactly one person replaced 50. Meanwhile we ask more of engineers.