CHAPTER 10
Don’t They Understand that Manufacturing Jobs Aren’t Coming Back?
LET’S GET REAL. Many of those blue-collar jobs lost over the past half century, and at
an increasing rate during the Great Recession, are gone forever. Globalization means that
capital flows quickly to countries with the lowest wages, and it flows so quickly that
companies that left the United States for China are now leaving China, where wages have
risen, for lower-cost countries like Vietnam. And importantly, although the problem of
companies “sending jobs overseas” has become a populist rallying cry, advances in
automation and productivity are actually responsible for much of the decline in
manufacturing work.^199 Making steel just doesn’t require as many people as it used to.
Is the only alternative a universal basic income? This proposal,^200 currently chic among
the tech set, will only further fuel the anger of working-class whites. What they want is
not a social safety net but a job.
Even in a globalizing, automating world, that’s not nuts—and shouldn’t be impossible.
But it will require new thinking by both conservatives and liberals. Liberals will have to
move beyond their singular focus on the college degree as the avenue to economic
achievement. Conservatives will have to recognize that providing jobs that yield a modest
middle-class life for non-college grads will necessitate the kind of industrial policy that
exists in Germany but has long been lacking in the United States.
An important priority is addressing the severe shortage of Americans trained for middle-
skill jobs. “Friends who work in the U.S. (in water infrastructure) always complain to me
about the poor skills of the average American workers they get. Trump would best start
there,” commented John Verhoeven.* Middle-skill jobs typically pay $40,000 and up and
require some post-secondary education but not a college degree. One effect of the
excessive focus on college degrees is that the United States lacks people with mid-level
skills. One study found “a lack of adequate middle-skills talent directly or significantly
affected the productivity of 47% of manufacturing companies, 35% of health care and
social assistance companies, and 21% of retail companies.” A 2011 survey found 30% of
all companies and 43% of manufacturing ones had positions that had been open for 6
months that they could not fill. A more recent survey confirmed large gaps, especially in
health care, technical sales, sales management, and in jobs that require computer and
mathematical skills.^201
- Don’t They Understand That Manufacturing Jobs Aren’t Coming Back?