Eh, I don’t want more people working in manufacturing. I want more people enjoying their lives and maybe robots doing that sort of job. Ew, me and my progressive thoughts.
That’s the utility of unemployment, to force people into factories. Coming soon.
I really like this chart because it highlights how, despite all the awful shit that happens every day, we are more alike than we are different. It’s gonna take a lot to undo the propaganda, hatred, etc., but if we focus on Class instead of other ways of being divided and conquered, the change everyone wants can eventually happen.
This is what always gets me as someone who works in manufacturing. We go though people like clockwork. Finding someone who wants the job, can do the job, and can learn the process is such a monumental task. The sad part is the money is there. You’ll get paid better then people with degrees. Still they don’t want to do what it takes.
I worked at a place that had consistent mandatory overtime. I never saw the outside of the factory except to just sleep and then go back again. There was no upward advancement whatsoever. And it was completely unsafe where people would eventually snap and sometimes have to be dragged out by the private police that they hired. Also, when you enter the place, you go through turn styles. Almost as if you’re in prison or something. The people that normally want to bring manufacturing back to America are the people that have like a 1950s view of the world. But working in a factory in modern America, it’s not really appealing because of how you’re treated and you actually get a really low pay. You have no protection under the law. Especially if you’re living in a right to work state. And everyone around you is toxic. Thinking that one day their ship will come in, they just need to step on your neck. And I didn’t puss out and I saw people come and go and I even worked my way up to different positions. I didn’t want to be like the guy getting dragged out and my health was declining so I quit that shitty job and I’ll never do it again.
Exactly
That has not been my experiencing for most manufacturing, including a lot of skilled manufacturing. Every manufacturing job I’ve done has either paid complete garbage, or has been so mind-numbingly simple and boring that it could be done by trained pigeons.
Give me a solid union manufacturing job, where I’m earning enough on a single income to own a small house and raise a family, and I’d absolutely go back to manufacturing.
That’s exactly where I work today but I’m telling you you wouldnt make it past temp.
Mind-numbing boredom, I’m guessing?
You’re probably right; I’ve got pretty severe ADHD, so staying on task with boring shit is HARD.
Eh, our techs don’t make shit imo. We are in a high cost of living area, and they make better wages than unskilled labor, but it’s nothing like it was back when I was a kid. If you talk to the old heads, what they were making 25 years ago is less than techs make today, not even accounting for inflation. The thing is, the reason we had well paid techs then was strong union membership. If they bring jobs back, the Republicans for sure aren’t going to make it a union job, and if they do bring back manufacturing, it’ll be in a bunch of shitty “right to work” states, and people will make shit wages. The people in said states are too dumb to unionize, and will keep voting for their oppressors
As someone who started right out of school, it took years for my income to start to surpass some of the more experienced operators. No its not hundreds of thousands but it’s in that 70,000 to 90,000 range for people who don’t sleep on OT.
Yeah, but you shouldn’t have to work OT in order to make a livable wage. People should have a work/life balance where they aren’t going home from work and immediately falling asleep.
It’s there, honestly, I’d work OT while being a salaried employee. But your attitude towards it is the exact reason people don’t want these manufacturing jobs. So you’re only proving my point.
But your attitude towards it is the exact reason people don’t want these manufacturing jobs
The very idea that that should be a necessary part of a manufacturing job, or any job, is, IMO, “problematic”. Too many people have bought into the idea that we should pursue capitalist ideals to the detriment of everything else. I’m not advocating for a socialist utopia (okay, I am, kind of), but you should be able to go to your job, put in eight hours, and go home. If you’re constantly doing OT, then the workplace should hire more people.
Where I am, 70-90 k is an absolute shit salary is my point. It might be great where you are, but where I am, that’s not buying you a house. That’s about what our more senior technicians make, but the entry level guys make like $25-28/hr. Almost every office job at our company pays more. I love turning bolts, but it’s objectively harder work for less money, and that is why I don’t want those jobs.
Where do you live? Not exact location but rural or major Metropolitan area? It matters a lot.
I’m surrounded by tech companies and a crack house costs $1.4 mil
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I have always assumed that I wouldn’t be wanted. Helping build stuff looks neat, but I am getting old, raised in the boondocks, only have a high school degree, and am autistic. It is my guess that no one would want the likes of me, because there are many other people who are more capable and desperate.
From my experience wisdom goes a long way as an operator. It takes wisdom to know 99% of things you don’t understand can be explained pretty easily if you are curious and not afraid to ask questions. Lots of operators think they just need to show up and “do the job.” That’s true, mostly, but if you instead show up, do the job, and learn the process, you’ll become invaluable.
No no, you have this wrong. We want factories, but it should be all robots and the people that don’t own factories should simply kill themselves.
Why the hell would you change the word to manufacturing vs. factory?
Is there more to this survey? Is someone just cherry picking these two questions?
I think it’s obvious people have a much more negative association with “factory job” than “a job in manufacturing”. A factory job very much brings the ideas of assembly lines into people’s mind. A job in manufacturing could bring that, but it could also bring ideas of engineers, designers, etc.
This is either a garbage survey specifically wording one question differently to get the outcome they wanted; or someone picked two questions that should not be directly compared like this without context.
Even the fundamentals of the questions are different. Its not Americans would be better off, but America. Which is a question asking if the nation would be better off, not the individuals living in it. Where as the next question is from the perspective of an individual living in the country.
As an aside, I’ve worked in factories, they do indeed suck to work at and I will never again go near that work. Mostly because of the types of people. Asshole bosses and reactionary dipshit co-workers. Office work is boring and a little soul sucking but at least the people are chill and generally progressive at office jobs.
I’m specifically talking about the wording of the survey questions. If you’ve ever worked on making survey’s and collected good samples for it you quickly learn how much the questions you ask and the way you ask them impacts the results.
An obvious example being surveys asking Americans about “The affordable care act” vs. “Obama Care”. You can swing the results by double digit percentages just by changing the name of the same policy.
But taking the results side by side in a vacuum from this so you can get clicks is all financial times cares about.
The article is written so you think “Americans want others to work in factories but not themselves” but if you think about even the numbers with these poorly worded questions for more than a second they actually make sense.
1 in 6 people you survey are gonna be over 65 and retired (assuming you had a representative sample). And even more are gonna be “old”
More are gonna be college educated and already working in a comfortable job.
Obviously many people are going to answer “well, no it’s not for me obviously”
It’s actually still a large percentage that want to work in a factory considering everything. Which is the opposite of what the article is trying to imply.
You and another person didn’t fall for FT’s propaganda.
Here’s the survey.
44 people ITT got trolled.
Thank you. I have spent too much time arguing with idiots that misuse statistics. The wording in the question being different was a huge red flag.
People have been brainwashed to hate unions, so they equate the good jobs that can support families with factories instead. There’s nothing special about a factory job, except that a factory is difficult to close down when workers unionize.
What we need is high unionization, including sector wide unions.
I’m guessing the people commenting don’t work in a factory.
It’s Taco Bell wages with lung cancer air and no air conditioning. It’s not better for anyone. I work in one that makes a “world famous” product rich people absolutely love. They still look to hire people at $17/hr in a VHCOL area…
Yup. The rose coloured glasses folks think manufacturing jobs provided good pay, when it was union jobs that did that. And you can turn any industry into a unionized industry with enough
fireeffort.And you can turn any industry into a unionized industry with enough
fireeffort.This is fucking poetry. It’s a shame I’ll forget it in 5 minutes.
In teaching:
Union member, public school: Union sent a rep to meetings when admin was fucking with me. When my HVAC system got fucked up and for some reasons for several months in November it was getting up to 100*F by the end of the day, and admin ignored my emails and text - one email to the Union rep and it was fixed. I also knew, unambiguously when I was expected to work. Things like Parent/Teacher conferences where I would need to work later were communicated when I signed my contract. Still very defanged as a Union, but still - they earned my money.
Charter school, no unions lulzzzzzz:
No idea when I would be expected to show up to mandatory PD’s - or even where they would be. Mid year they forced us to sign a new contract with a pay decrease. Options were “sign or walk.” They also of course fired me mid year because the case load drove me to a mental breakdown, and I started hinting at things like accommodations. Also pointed out things like Title 9 and IDEA, which admittedly are not concerns under the current administration. Not that my former employer had ever had any concerns about petty things like the law lol……
That tracks 😑 My cousin and her husband both work for the same private school. I always felt they were playing with fire, and your story does not assuage those fears.
preaches to the choir
Unions, people. There’s a reason they were necessary, and a reason the parasite class has been poisoning the well for generations. If you can join, do it.
Fucking real. Capatalism needs these job, not humans.
I’d be better off if I worked in a factory but they paid me $250k. Balls in your court, factory owner.
I do understand the allure of “we should make things again”, and the security implications of maintaining a local manufacturing capacity and workforce - but I think people from advanced economies are incredibly myopic about what it actually looks like to develop that capacity back.
It’ll be difficult for the US to compete on price with countries like China, which have a much better developed manufacturing sector and lower wages / cost of living, even with steep tariffs applied to inflate the prices of imported goods.
They’d probably have to subsidise production in the short-term, and invest heavily in capital to automate production to the greatest extent possible so as to avoid needing to ask Americans to accept lower living standards to stand a chance.
Another thing to consider with manufacturing is logistics, there are so many things that have to come together to manufacture a single doohicky.
Buying land near a transit hub is expensive so you try to buy land in a rural area, but then how do you get it shipped to you while maintaining reasonable prices so you can stay competitive? Ground transit is fine as long as petrol prices are low, but most manufacturing is putting together other goods, which largely come from other countries.
So you… start a mine to get whatever you need? Just grab a pickaxe and start digging I guess, otherwise it doesn’t matter what you make the prices will be 10x china’s because the costs are outrageous.
I actually think the security guarantee is an illusion. If we are all dependent on one another we’re less likely to go to war. Conversely, If all countries start competing over the same resources the chances of war increase
I meant security less in the armed conflict sense, more in the less vulnerable to disruption sense. It does make sense to retain a food production sector, and a manufacturing sector for important goods like pharmaceuticals - because countries are likely to prioritise themselves in times of scarcity or crisis. I agree that interdependence is good for avoiding conflict.
I think this independence is an illusion in the current globalised environment and it would be very difficult to attain it even for a very large country like the US (and completely out of reach for small countries).
Let’s take the example of food. Does your country depend on imports of fertiliser? What about animal feed (soy beans)? I am guessing the answer to both these questions yes.
The point is, we are in this together. For a small nation this is trivially obvious, but larger nations like to pretend they can do things alone. And then you get people like Trump that play on these sentiments.
My partner would 100% be happier working in a factory than in fast food. Right now he’s in the hospital kitchen which is the next best thing.
I think America would be better if nursing assistant was a job people could just do for the rest of their career instead of calling it a “student job” so they can justify paying peanuts. Hell they’re doing that with nurses now too, everybody’s going to NP or CRNA school; then who the hell is gonna flip granny? You gotta flip that bird 6 times a shift like a lil pancake just so she doesn’t wear a hole in her saggy lil tush! Depressed wages are pushing everybody outta direct care so they can eat, and then there’s nobody left to actually provide direct care! And telework jobs like case management and utilization review which wouldn’t even exist if insurance companies no longer existed, which would be a deep heresy against capitalism. Granny can probably still call the doctor and a cab for herself but who the hell gonna load her actual body into the car? Even when medicaid covers the bill uber ain’t gonna let their drivers take liability for anything more than putting her bag in the back seat for her.
Revalue direct-care Healthcare workers 2025!
I mean, that’s not necessarily bad, right? 80% people think that it would be better for them if someone worked in a factory and 25% think it would be better if they personally worked in a factory. So, if the 25% get a chance to work in a factory, they’re satisfied and the 80% is satisfied as well.
Assuming the 80% could be satisfied…is a big assumption.
True enough, though I meant it more in the sense of the graph. People can rarely be satisfied.
You could also think that the country would be better off with people working manufacturing instead of gig jobs like Uber or minimum wage at restaurants since manufacturing in the US typically meant unions and better pay.
Not in modern day USA. I mean there are people working to re-legalise child labour.
That’s true, but we can still push for higher wages to attract people to those jobs instead of allowing companies to twist labor like they are.
Are we going to? Probably not, but I can see the point of view someone who believes it might hold.
I think you would need far more than 25% to get to where the average “why don’t we make things anymore” dork dreams about
Like 25% of the Chinese workforce is in manufacturing (roughly) but they’ve got the infrastructure and have put decades into systems to build what they have.
America would be building it from the ground up. Automation systems take time to iron out kinks and cost a lot up front.
And all this to find out that American made is just a meaningless phrase because it’s not about where an item is physically made, it’s about standards to which the items construction is dictated. China can make things of extremely high quality. They’re just consistently tasked to make things by cutting as many corners as possible to maximize profits at the expense of consumers. Those same shitty practices applied to American manufacturing will result in “made in America” shit. Case in point you can find plenty of stuff currently manufactured in America that is total shit. You can find stuff manufactured in America that is high quality and you can find stuff manufactured in China that is high quality. The country of manufacture is meaningless and this pissing match is pointless
I think you would need far more than 25% to get to where the average “why don’t we make things anymore” dork dreams about
American manufacturing has been on a consistently upward trajectory and has never been higher. Many things made in America either are highly skilled, highly automated, or both. The hubbub about “bringing manufacturing back” is all just a smokescreen to redirect the anger from Americans who used to have stable, well paying, union factory jobs, who never will have one again.
I’m not disagreeing, sorry if that was the impression, I was merely pointing out that the passive-agressive “someone’s American dream, just not mine” does not really apply to the graph.
I think you would need far more than 25% to get to where the average “why don’t we make things anymore” dork dreams about
Germany is at 21% and that’s after a fairly sizable decline over time:
Given how automated everything is today, 25% of the population working in manufacturing is a pipedream.
It looks like an emperor’s new clothes scenario to me. People agree with each other that the US should manufacture more because they have picked up that that’s the respectable answer; not because they see any actual sense in it.
Or maybe it’s some sort of nostalgia. I guess people used to say that more people should work in agriculture, because that was somehow their idea of a proper, wholesome country.
People who play medievalist games somehow never pretend to be serfs or farm-hands.
There are a few areas where you would want manufacturing in the country. Defense, some medical supplies, … Just in case things go bad, you’d want some capacity, some expertise in the country to be less dependent. You’d spend extra resources just in case, just to be safe. But it’s never a rational end in itself.
As someone with a bunch of friends who had factory gigs before NAFTA and still a few today, there’s plenty of people who are happy in factory situations, you know?
It’s fair to say there’s a lot of inaccurate assumptions on the right wing side here, but factory work isn’t always a horror show. It’s obvious they want to do as much as they can to make it awful, like deregulating things and whatnot. And obviously, the infrastructure isn’t there and won’t spring up overnight. That’s no good, but the factory labor itself? Probably fine in a lot of cases.
It’s fine if and only if you have these infrastructure and regulations in place. It’s good if and only if the above plus also being a union job.
The people trying to drive this industry up again are attempting to do so while removing regulations and crippling or killing unions. The factory jobs won’t be “fine” when you’re paid a dollar an hour and have a new 13 year old coworker every week because the previous one got himself killed at work.
That 25% may not know that most US manufacturing is outsourced to nations with a lower valued currency, lax health and safety regulations, child labor, and/or slave labor. It’s probably still a cushy upgrade for coal miners.
Subtext: Americans would be fine with minorities working in factories.
But they also want the minorities all deported… or imprisoned.
Wait, they want to use prison labor, don’t they. We’re just taking this back to slave labor again.
I feel like there are a lot of dimensions to this. I am a huge proponent of manufacturing, but yeah a lot of factory jobs suck. The problem is, they don’t have to. Modern factories are way better than old ones, and could be even better if we as a culture prioritized making jobs less soul crushing rather than access to cheap shit. I also feel like people who haven’t worked in manufacturing don’t really understand what it’s like in a modern facility. I think there’s this idea that it’s working at an assembly line or going out and turning a bunch of valves all the time but nowadays 99% of it is just sitting at a computer watching numbers. I wouldn’t want to be on the floor at my current job but I’ve worked other places where it seems a hell of a lot better than most other jobs available to non college grads.
Another issue is that modern manufacturing sites are super automated. Very few people actually work at them, at least the ones in America. You can have a plant that makes millions of pounds of plastic a year that employs 60-70 people, which is less than a typical Walmart.
Is it true that modern factory jobs are sitting at a computer? I’ve watched a few “how stuff is made” videos and am always amazed at how much labor goes into almost every step.
I work in automotive and sometimes visit the plants. We still have a lot of manual labor because it is hard to automate certain things. But newer production lines definitely require less people as more steps are automated. We also are starting up the implementation of robots in the warehouses after running several proof of concepts in the past years.
Anyway, there are still plenty of factory jobs that are not just sitting behind a desk, but office space is increasing for sure as one automation engineer can now run a set of robots that does the work of what 10 people used to do.
I suppose it depends on what you’re making but in my experience new plants are incredibly automated. Then again, I work in chemicals and not consumer goods, which probably has a bias towards automation
Only about 10% of the working population in the US is in manufacturing, so 20% more people that would want to work in manufacturing is quite a lot. It’s impossible to undo the automation that has happened to date, though. Worse, if more people work in manufacturing, the pressure on wages and the pressure to automate can both increase.
Even if we stop all imports and make every finished good purchased in the US here, it’s far from enough to bring us back to the historic levels of employment in manufacturing.
20% is a lot. Goes to show that the working conditions in the US are bad.
Thanks, as much as I think whatever the US government is doing rn is dumb and self-destructive, it’s important to clarify these two charts don’t contradict each other.
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