But the AP just released an article citing some surprising trends. The complete article can be viewed HERE. And while it is true that we are a long way from economic recovery, this certainly is cause for renewed hope in future economic stability.
“As record numbers of orders flow through Legacy Furniture Group's manufacturing plant, workers toil between towers of piled foam and incomplete end tables precariously stacked five pieces high. With a 10 percent sales growth this year, Legacy has quickly forgotten the recession's low point in March, when weak order volumes forced the company to implement four-day work weeks.”“Legacy's recent success highlights a trend: Counties with the heaviest reliance on manufacturing income are posting some of the biggest employment gains of the nation's early economic recovery. This is a big change from just half a year ago, when some economists worried that widespread layoffs by U.S. manufacturers might be part of an irreversible trend in that sector.”
“Elkhart County, Ind., meanwhile, saw such a startling surge in layoffs one year ago that President Barack Obama made a stop there in the opening weeks of his presidency. The unemployment rate there, driven by job cuts at RV manufacturers, spiked in March at 18.9 percent, but has fallen steadily ever since — to 15 percent in September.”"Manufacturing jobs are here to stay, and they're coming back," said Derald Bontrager, president and chief operating officer of Middlebury, Ind.-based RV maker Jayco Inc., which recalled or hired 200 laid-off workers over the summer to help ramp up production after an unexpected sales boom overwhelmed all-time-low inventories and left the producer unable to meet demand. They're still trying to catch up.”
Even though there has been a steady exodus of jobs out of the country which predates the recent economic collapse by manufacturers looking for cheap labor and little oversight, there are new employers opening facilities and hiring workers.
While this will be unhappy news for the “I want Obama to fail” advocates, this will be a shining light at the end of a long tunnel for many beleaguered families out of work and in need of some good news.(Cross posted at Progressive Eruptions)
President Obama announced the employment upswing in a town hall meeting in upstate Pennsylvania.
ReplyDeleteBringing his good news to the people worked to override the loud and ugly right wing dissenters in 2008, and hopefully it will work now.
Next: how jobs created are not actually jobs created, or: Egypt, the land of de nile.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that what may restore our manufacturing base is not the big mega companies that have left our shores but the smaller specialized factories like Legacy that serves the medical community, Jayco and our own TAO's big and tall tees. These are the companies investing in America and they should have our full support. Watch for more of these innovative companies on the horizon.
ReplyDeleteRocky, I wish I could share your optimism but the trend of the past 25 years is that more and more of our wage earner population is at risk of downsizing and outsourcing.
ReplyDeleteTwenty years ago, it was primarily blue workers who were downsized as our manufacturing base dwindled. The next vulnerable group were white collar workers. About ten years ago, tech and call center jobs started migrating to India.
These days, MD, PhD, and statistician positions in the pharmaceutical business are moving to Asia - India, China, Singapore. Big pharma can hire MDs and PhDs in India for less than 15% of the cost of hiring American equivalents. When high-value, high education positions start disappearing, where is the incentive to earn an advanced degree when American businesses no longer support you.
Worse still, when the only high-value jobs left are in the military-industrial complex, what does this say about the future course and direction of the nation? Very scary, in my view.