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Pundits will debate the wellsprings of Donald Trump's election triumph for years. Right now, cultural explanations are in the lead. Multiple researchers and journalists are stressing the role of "racial resentments" and xenophobia as the deepest sources of Trump's appeal. And such explanations cannot be dismissed.
But the decades-long decline of U.S. manufacturing employment and the highly automated nature of the sector's recent revitalization should also be high on the list of explanations. The former is an unmistakable source of the working class rage that helped get Trump elected. The latter is the main reason Trump won't be able to "make America great again" by bringing back production jobs.
The Rust Belt epicenter of the Trump electoral map says a lot about its emotional origins, but so do the facts of employment and productivity in U.S. manufacturing industries. The collapse of labor-intensive commodity manufacturing in recent decades and the expansion in this decade of super-productive advanced manufacturing have left millions of working-class white people feeling abandoned, irrelevant, and angry.
To see this, one has only to look at the stark trend lines of the production data, which show a massive 30-year decline of employment beginning in 1980. That trend led to the liquidation of more than a third of U.S. manufacturing positions. Employment in the sector plunged from 18.9 million jobs to 12.2 million.
[...] In fact, the total inflation-adjusted output of the U.S. manufacturing sector is now higher than it has ever been. That's true even as the sector's employment is growing only slowly, and remains near the lowest it's been. These diverging lines—which reflect the sector's improved productivity—highlight a huge problem with Trump's promises to help workers by reshoring millions of manufacturing jobs. America is already producing a lot. And in any event, the return of more manufacturing won't bring back many jobs because the labor is increasingly being done by robots.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Geezer on Monday November 21 2016, @11:38AM
I've worked as an electrical engineeri in manufacturing automation my entire career. Manufacturing has evolved. It will continue to do so. Automated systems, including robotic sub-systems and nodes, still provide employment.
Someone must design the process. Someone must design the equipment for the process. Someone must build the equipment. Someone must install the equipment. Someone must commission and de-bug the equipment. Someone must maintain the equipment.
These are real jobs, and they pay better than most.
To say that more manufacturing =/= more jobs is just stupid.
(Score: 5, Informative) by iwoloschin on Monday November 21 2016, @11:48AM
The problem is most of these new jobs are knowledge jobs, or at least highly skilled technician jobs. These are not the jobs everyone is clamoring for, being a coal miner doesn't require much in the way of education.
Also, most of the time, the number of jobs created by automation is less than the number of jobs that existed before. That's by design, why else would you automate unless you can save money? It's great if you're a skilled employee who can get a job maintaining the automation, but again, that's a percentage of the jobs that existed before.
(Score: 2) by Geezer on Monday November 21 2016, @12:04PM
Some industries, like coal, are obsolescing. However, a lot of the jobs that were lost to offshoring were already skilled jobs, in the automotive, textile, and furniture industries. Those jobs can come home.
Lots of technicians are retrained coal miners. Lack of education is usually a matter of opportunity, not motivation.
True, jobs per process become fewer, but profitable productivity leads to expansion and...wait for it...more jobs.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 21 2016, @02:50PM
There is no auto assembly jobs to come back. It was wash already due to all the factories foreign makes built and are running. Of course, these new factories didn't go where the older factories closed, the upper midwest. It went instead to the south where the wage is lower and the unions are weak. The upper midwest remains rust bucket, and that won't change any time soon.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 21 2016, @04:40PM
You're most likely absolutely correct. The unions up there have effectively priced themselves out of the market. I expect the same will eventually happen with the industries in the south too, because unions have no history of being able to tell when they are about to go a step too far.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Monday November 21 2016, @09:48PM
Worker safety (equipment, clothing, training, etc) time off for family issues, overtime pay, holiday pay, breaks, those unions just have to give up on having workers have quality of kife! It is BAD for the US!
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 22 2016, @12:08AM
If the economy will not support a business that pays what they're demanding, they do themselves no favors by demanding it. Short term gain, long term unemployment.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Tuesday November 22 2016, @12:33AM
Not having to work with a machine that can take your hand off?
8-hour day?
Time to see your family?
Yep. Definitely short-term.
Some unions may be money-grabbing, but generally, daddy or mommy are less likely to die at work because of them.
Also, paying people somlittle they need food stamps or other charity to be able to eat is evil.
If middle and senior managers only got paid up to 200% of the lowest paid worker, there would be enough to pay everyone a bit better.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 22 2016, @01:14AM
Very much short term if it causes the business to move the shop overseas or go out of business entirely. Yes. The union's objective should be to provide the highest sustainable standards for its workers. Most unions forget the word "sustainable".
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Pino P on Monday November 21 2016, @05:05PM
Lack of education is usually a matter of opportunity, not motivation.
Occasionally. But sometimes it's a matter of decreasing plasticity of the brain after 40 or 50 or whatever. And sometimes it's a matter of not being "college material" in the first place due to having been born with mild intellectual disability.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 22 2016, @02:06AM
Just remember that those are the ones with firearms, and can be whipped up into a frenzy at any time.
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 21 2016, @01:41PM
No, they're really not. It does not take huge amounts of technical skill to go replace a snapped conveyor belt, oil what needs oiling, etc... There aren't as many low-skilled jobs as there would have been back in the early 1900s but there are significant amounts of jobs, both highly and barely skilled, that come with any industrial facility, no matter how automated they are.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 21 2016, @02:19PM
It does not take huge amounts of technical skill to go replace a snapped conveyor belt, oil what needs oiling, etc...
That is correct. It will take minimal training and minimum wage to get that snapped conveyor belt replaced, to oil what needs to be oiled, etc. And because these "new jobs" employees will be relatively disposable temp agencies can supply a rotating stream of bodies that won't require permanent employment, raises, sick days, vacation days, health benefits, etc.
The only people truly benefiting from these "low skill" jobs will be the business/stock owners who can take full advantage of these "low skill" employees.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 21 2016, @04:27PM
Normally I'd agree but unions do still exist and they do tend to get their low-skilled members paid well above what their skills would otherwise merit.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 21 2016, @05:09PM
Sounds like you just described how to fix SDN deployments that blew up.
Doesnt take a smart person to spin up something in SDN. It does take a smart person to design the topology and understand how to fix it when it breaks.
The old days of the MCSE doing password resets are gone (and first went to overseas to foreign nationals), but IT still provides jobs. The easier ones are harder to find, much like easy manufacturing jobs.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 21 2016, @12:04PM
Someone must design the process.
Outsourced.
Someone must design the equipment for the process.
Outsourced.
Someone must build the equipment.
Outsourced.
Someone must install the equipment.
Cheap unskilled labor.
Someone must commission and de-bug the equipment.
Done remotely.
Someone must maintain the equipment.
No, you mean swap out broken equipment, again, cheap unskilled labor.
These are real jobs, and they pay better than most.
Not anymore they won't. And you're next to be laid off.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 21 2016, @12:06PM
Said the smarmy little idiot who never set foot in a factory.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 21 2016, @12:09PM
Said the moron who never set foot in Detroit.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 21 2016, @04:44PM
Detroit isn't an industrial town anymore. Pick a town that actually has industry.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Monday November 21 2016, @09:21PM
Sauget, Illinois. Has a huge Monsanto chemical plant and the Cerro Copper factory. Sits on the bank of the Mississippi between E. St. Louis and Cahokia. Right across the river is Anhauser Busch, I'd call a huge brewery like that a factory. Are oil refineries not factories? And there are still many auto plants in the US.
Your statement is absurd.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 22 2016, @06:35AM
Detroit isn't an industrial town anymore. Pick a town that actually has industry.
Outsourced ;).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 21 2016, @02:31PM
Said the smarmy little idiot who never set foot in a factory.
Different AC here. I worked in a factory for several years and these days some of my clients are manufacturers. Swapping things out is a prized luxury. It means the line is down for as short a time as possible, and shipping the parts out to be repaired or replaced is preferable rather than having a machinist or tool maker (or two) on the premises (let alone the investment in their tools, machinery and square footage).
Making sure we can track how many replacement parts are immediately available, and the lead time on getting the others repaired/returned is critical. Tying up capital in replacement parts is a much easier bill to swallow when compared to supplying a machine shop. No depreciation, no parts/maintenance on the machine shop tools/machinery, no high salaried skilled staff (just a low wage parts guy), no wasted space/utilities/overhead for the shop ... the list can go on and on.
Setting foot in a factory does not make you some sort of genius, it just means you've seen the new world of manufacturing (from the 90's) first hand and how it will continue to squeeze out most skilled labor.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 21 2016, @04:47PM
Depends on the size of the shop. Large shops it is still sometimes cost-effective to have your own machinist. When it's not, you hire a local(-ish) one because you don't want to have to ship something overseas and wait on it to get back; you want your part bloody well now. Either way, an American machinist is getting paid.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 21 2016, @12:06PM
Modded down for Truth.
(Score: 2) by Geezer on Monday November 21 2016, @12:42PM
That's OK, I'm near retirement and been banking quite a lot of my 6-figure salary. The future's so bright I gotta wear shades.
How's your life, Skippy?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Monday November 21 2016, @12:09PM
Our jobs are related. The robots do cost jobs.
Where we used to have an operator feed inserts into the machine, then remove the molded part from the machine, the robot does that. The operator remains at the machine, to perform after molding chores on the molded part - so it looks like we have no gain or loss. However, that operator used to make errors, put an insert in backward, and damage the mold. No longer do we damage the mold due to operator error. Multiply this by several machines, and plant wide, we have lost two jobs in tooling. We have also lost a tool setter, since we don't have to pull molds out of the machine on almost a daily basis. At the same time, we have gained one job in maintenance, because someone has to lube those robots, change air filters, and troubleshoot when a robot malfunctions.
As time progresses, the robots are being set up to perform more functions. Eventually, that operator performing after-molding functions will be able to operate multiple machines, because there are fewer tasks to perform at each machine. Ultimately, the operator will be eliminated, because the robot will perform all those tasks, then pack the parts into the boxes.
The current estimate for cost savings is, each robot has saved the company almost double the cost of an operator's annual pay. This is with the operator still standing there at the machine.
The company makes no secret that eventually, we'll only have a dozen or so operators left, where we used to have 40. They are to be eliminated.
Part of the reason we aren't further along now than we are, is the company chose some shit robots to begin with. Star Automation sucks ass, royally. At a rough estimate, Star robots are down about 20% of the time. More reliable and more flexible robots will be required to get the company where they want to be. Robots with built in sensors, that can tell when something is out of adjustment, and compensate. Star lacks any such feature - or at least their bottom-of-the-line robots lack those features.
(Score: 2) by Geezer on Monday November 21 2016, @12:50PM
Yup. Pretty much.
My experience has been Yaskawa/Motoman for shit jobs, Fanuc for general use, and ABB where accuracy and reliability are paramount at a huge pricetag.
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Monday November 21 2016, @02:38PM
A couple of years ago I was working at a factory that did rubber molding for automotive stuff - they were still running a lot of transfer presses and had some really aged injection presses. They eventually got some new modern presses, which didn't do much of anything the others couldn't except that they had sensors that were sensitive enough to tell if a part (really tiny valve thingys mostly) was out of alignment and would beep an error. Within a week some idiot who didn't comprehend the error message or check the parts in the mold (and shouldn't have been touching the process anyway) jacked up the threshhold on the pressure warnings and fubared the brand-new mold (and it was running some super-expensive material at the time IIRC, probably another 2-3k wasted in the head). If I was a manufacturer I would be getting rid of my humans ASAP, they are just not worth it.
(Score: 3, Funny) by VLM on Monday November 21 2016, @03:12PM
Within a week some idiot
The kind of place that is penny wise and pound foolish when hiring, probably purchases all its robots from the robot equivalent of Harbor Freight, so having some idiot buy the wrong robot and program it the wrong way isn't going to fix anything when the fundamental problem is its the same idiot who used to hire the wrong people. Half of all management is below median, and all that.
One good thing about humans is in theory you can fix an idiot, although it might take a long time and be expensive and probably not too pleasant experience for anyone involved, but you'll never fix a POS machine on any realistic timescale or financial budget. Also an idiot who can't hire properly at least occasionally makes a good hiring decision, the blind dog sometimes finding a bone anyway, but an idiot can't randomly go negotiate against a major robot supply corporation and not get his ass handed to him buying the wrong tool for the job at the worst possible price.
In the programming world we have the same problem with checkboxes for UI and security. You can't fix stupid once its gone stupid and if its not stupid it doesn't need fixing. Don't matter much if its a manager of an assembly line or sysadmin of assembly language computer coders.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Monday November 21 2016, @05:14PM
Robots with built in sensors, that can tell when something is out of adjustment, and compensate. Star lacks any such feature - or at least their bottom-of-the-line robots lack those features.
If Star lacks proper diagnostics, then perhaps you need a FAG Detector [youtube.com].
(Score: 3, Informative) by TheRaven on Monday November 21 2016, @12:23PM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 21 2016, @12:28PM
To maintain full employment of Human Resources drones, 900 unnecessary job openings will still be advertised, and Human Resources drones will be paid to look at and ignore every application for jobs that no longer exist.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday November 21 2016, @03:04PM
It is somewhat serious that the formerly 1000 person factory will have 100 people on the robot maintenance front lines probably producing 10x to 100x what the human laborers produced, but they'll have a 10 person diversity department/council, and a 10 person safety department to handle OSHA stuff, and an extra 10 people just to handle SOX and HIPPA compliance and more and more. It'll never add up to the original 1000 employees back in 1950, but it might reach school district levels of one dead weight per one front line worker, and 200 is certainly a hell of a lot more than the current 0 at that empty facility.
Its actually a kind of interesting puzzle if you assume 1 support person per front line employee, that means one robot technician needs one IT dude or whatever and working in a factory is an interesting experience and I wonder where we're gonna find the "safety nazi professionals" and "HR specialists in hiring factory workers" and "factory production specific lower to mid level management" and "IT professionals capable of installing hardware that survives factory floor levels of abuse"
There's a lot of focus on finding robot techs, which oddly enough in 3rd world hell holes where there is no educational infrastructure it seems easier to produce people like that, which is damning for our legacy education system. But aside from that, we gonna need a lot of diversity department and OSHA compliance people and IT folks and accountants and receptionists and just random Joe6Pack folks.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday November 24 2016, @07:13PM
Sure, moving manufacturing back isn't the one true solution, just part of the picture. But it is a part of the picture.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 21 2016, @04:38PM
in India, China, Vietnam, Bangladesh, or South Africa.