Quote:
Originally Posted by Design1stCode2nd
And some of this has to do with location. The middle of the country will be hit the hardest as it has always had an industrial base. Job security is not in manufacturing, hasn't been for years. For those in Ohio, Michigan, illinois and other states you may have to move to find work. I know my father had to do that several times when I was growing up.
Luckily I have a job that can't be outsourced and unlikely to be downsized and for that I'm grateful.
Almost anyone coming out of college today is going to face hardships in getting a job. When I graduated the economy was bad and I had to take whatever I could get.
|
There are many reasons this country's manufacturing base has left in my little humble opinion. My family has a CNC machine shop here in Buffalo,NY so I know from whence I speak...
First, NAFTA took a shot at us; it was directly responsible for about 20% of our "daily" fill-in work booking to Mexico. While it wasn't by far the most profitable work in our shop, it did necessitate a 2nd shift running. For those in this type of business, you know that once your overhead is covered, work above and beyond that doesn't have to command the "standard" hourly rate to be profitable. Anyways, with the advent of India and China coming on board over the past 15 years, more and more of our work was shipped overseas. They are making finished parts cheaper than we could buy the raw material for in most cases. Labor costs is a huge part of that but so is government subsidies to those companies from my understanding. Those governments are writing 0% loans and in some cases actually buying the machines to put in these facilities.
We simply can't compete against $100 a week in wages and low-cost and/or free equipment. Does that mean the workers here should work for $100 a week? Of course not. It does mean though that our wage structure had to change to remain competitive. It didn't. Here's where we are because of it.
Also, IMO only, there is a totally different breed of graduates coming out of college nowadays. They all want the cushy $100k a year desk jobs (that don't exist anyways). They don't want to have to get their hands dirty like I did, my father did, his father did... That's who's coming out of college now- no one to
work in manufacturing.
So, with regards to
manufacturing in the US, companies are in trouble because they've lost all the "gravy" work, they're in trouble because they're paying too much to get done what they have, and they can't hire anyone new to fill the gaps. Did I miss anything?