Niala Boodhoo · Who says American manufacturing is dead?

June 10th, 2011


 

Courtesy: Butech Bliss

 

CHICAGO – Certainly not the folks who were at a Chicago Council on Global Affairs breakfast Thursday morning talking manufacturing. All of them – the Chicago Fed’s Bill Strauss, the National Association of Manufacturers’ Chief Economist Chad Moutray, Navistar‘s vice president of manufacturing operations, David Beebe – even moderator Diane Swonk – declared themselves “optimistic” about American manufacturing.

Here’s a short piece I just did talking to Strauss about his tennis ball analogy that he uses to explain how U.S. manufacturing is doing right now – and little about why he’s so optimistic:

The data backs up that optimism. My colleague Pete Bigelow mentioned some last week when he wrote about the Fed’s Midwest Manufacturing Index. Here are a few more stats Strauss mentioned at the event:

- Excluding Thursday’s trade numbers, which were released as the breakfast was happening, manufactured goods as exports have increased a seasonally adjusted 14.5 percent over the past year;

- Manufacturing itself has increased at an annualized rate of 6.9 percent over the past 22 months;

- The automotive sector in particular has come back to an extent that Michigan, which had the highest unemployment rate in the country for the past for years, in June, was outdone by Nevada, and now ranks sixth worst (hey, it’s an improvement).

A note about the jobs. As Bill Strauss has written, this doesn’t mean that all of the jobs will come back. American manufacturing in particular has seen tremendous gains in productivity, due in large part of technology, that require fewer workers. I know that’s no consolation for those who worked in manufacturing and are still out of a job. If you’re out of work and feeling left out of the “new” manufacturing, please share. Or, if you’re a part of the new manufacturing, we’ld love to hear your thoughts as well.

Category: Biztech, Industry, jobs
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