Factory Jobs Are Tough AF... Why Do We Want Them Back So Badly?
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- Опубликовано: 8 фев 2025
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Offshoring, automation and a shift towards service jobs have all played a part in killing manufacturing jobs.
The number of people actually making stuff for a living is down by over a third, in the same time the workforce as a whole has GROWN by 50%.
Not too long ago, this was actually seen as positive progress.
Blue collar manufacturing jobs are dangerous, harder on your body, and all around seen as inferior to working in a nice air conditioned office contributing to the all encompassing “service sector”.
But that’s all started to change…
People have realised that manufacturing jobs can earn more than white collar work, and it’s become a desirable career all over again.
Elections are being won or lost on the promise of “creating” manufacturing jobs and billions of dollars are being handed out to companies to make it happen.
But the trend is not our friend, and fighting it might end up doing more harm than good.
These are still incredibly difficult jobs with a very uncertain future.
So why are we all suddenly yearning for the lines?
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I should point out that most people may have moved on, but most young people have not, and may actually be moving on from office or college educated. While the decline has been especially sharp for men, younger women are also not going to college at the rate they used to. It seems industrial work, while not necessarily replacing college work in full, is becoming an option for younger folk who find that college is not for them. The trend is not necessarily unique to the US. It made the news in South Korea for similar reasons as well, and there is discussion that Japan might experience something similar.
I would love a manufacturing job!
7:55 what happened in 1973? bretton woods was scrapped along with any relationship between currency and some tangible asset (gold standard). while that probably had to happen for many complicated reasons, it also unlocked pure money as a vocation and led to literally every economic problem we have today. media destroyed our culture and pure fiat currency destroyed our economics.
It's a funny joke until the nations say "no" to America.
All the benefits with none of the work... That's what happens in a dependent nation rather than an independent one.
Since my comment was deleted I will write it here. Here it goes:
I hope new unions won't appear and existing ones will be supressed. Unions are inherently unfair and give workers too much leverage at expense of business owners. On top of that, they won't solve the problem of decent life conditions being unaffordable, since this problem mostly exists because of zoning laws and too much permissions being required to build multistory buildings
I think we want the purchasing power, Social safety net, and Union protections that came with those jobs, rather than the actual jobs themselves.
Employment is literally renting another human being as if they're property. The employer-employee relationship is a very insidious dynamic. Employment is a rental contract, like if you rented capital (say, a chainsaw from Home Depot), you pay rent for the "time preference" (basically the cost of time) for a piece of property. Capitalism is based on a principle of self ownership, which sounds empowering, until you realize that most people don't own capital goods other than themselves, and must rent out the authority over themselves as pieces of "human capital". This is a process of dehumanization where human beings are valued for their return on investment as capital goods. This is why, at the very least, capitalism needs unions and safety nets (or abolishment), or else the system won't value people for their human value. Importantly we must also think about our sick, elderly, and disabled people, as they can't provide competitive economic return for the investor class to value. We must figure out a way to change this economic system if we wish to value each other as human beings.
ok yeah you nailed it, this man said in 1 sentence what took me a 10 minute video.
@@HowMoneyWorksless than a minute lol
Those things aren't innate to manufacturing jobs, though. There was a brief period following WWII where the US had the only intact industrial base. That meant that pretty much the whole world had to buy their manufactured goods from us, and our firms leveraged that into charging higher prices than they'd have gotten away with otherwise. At the same time, unions were strong enough to use their own relative monopolies on labor to claw some of that excess profit down to the workers.
Neither of those conditions is true today.
@@WanderingExistencesomeone stealing from you "indirectly" through government enforcement is not exactly a utopian arrangement...
The natural state of human beings is incredible suffering and fighting for food, shelter, and survival. It's through hard work that we built ourselves up to this monumental level of economic and technological achievement.
I understand giving some minimal resources to someone to feed them and have some very basic shelter... But there should be a very tight limit to it. Expensive medical procedures to save lives, for instance, should not really be on the table.
I'm not talking about some random abstract $ figure. I mean an absurd amount of staff, and a ton of labor intensive resources being spent to help one person continue to live. At some point, you have to say sorry and reject them.
Line factory workers didn't move up to white collar jobs they moved down to retail, delivery and food service jobs.
Low skill high pay in the factory no factory no skill guess what then no pay these type of job are meant to be filled by working age kids to collage students or retired ppl just wanting to keep busy not 30-55year olds thinking a cashier job is a career
To be fair, line factory work used to not require any skill. Now it's a high skill position.
Tbf most line workers weren’t particularly skilled anyways - just doing a single repetitive actions for hours in conditions that were really quite miserable. Those types have also never paid well and sat around minimum wage too.
Customer facing positions are usually at least in better conditions (a cashier will never have to deal with tools that would stamp your arm just the same as a piece of metal without a hesitation, for example) and if there’s enough of them available, then the loss of line positions isn’t necessarily a bad thing
@@coonhound_pharaohyou haven't been in a manufacturing plant in a while have you?
@@andrewzheng4038 Factory work really isn't that dangerous anymore in the US. In part, a lot of the gross safety violations of early companies had to do with limited research on how to do things safely. Now, most programs for making automated machinery comes with canned, default safety features that are easy to set up. You have to be REALLY pinching pennies to not, e.g., have a pneumatic interlock on your fixturing that automatically shuts-down all energy sources when someone tries to access the machines.
Modern line positions aren't really "Stamping metal with machines" either. It depends a lot on the factory. The factory I'm at, most of our techs are split ~50% between monitoring and troubleshooting machines (generally following a specific guide that we make in engineering), and ~50% moving material or filling out forms. Some factories are still primarily manual, almost artisan processes, and a few really crazy firms have fully-automated factories that run on their own. Techs there, when they're even present, are basically just dispatched to fix machine breakdowns or doublecheck that nothing is broken.
I think more manufacturing jobs would be great but I also struggle to see where they would come from. So many of our operations today are fully automated, we can run with
I work in a CNC machine shop. For a first job right out of university, my pay isn't half bad, 8 hours is 8 hours, I'm in at 7 and out by 3. My boss is tough, demanding but also very fair and he not only supervises my work but constantly teaches me new stuff so that I can learn all about machining. A lot of my former uni colleagues are baffled by the fact that I choose to work as a machinist with a degree in mechanical engineering but the way I see it, this is all amazing experience if I ever want to move into designing, as we do a fair bit of that too.
And what do we make at the shop? Prosthetics. There's something so satisfying in knowing that me showing up and putting in my 8 hours of work each day means that someone will be able to walk again after an amputation.
I think that last paragraph is the key here. Jobs need to be fulfilling, actually serve a purpose. All the manufacturing jobs I've had were making junk that doesn't need to exist, that will likely never be sold, or bought as an impulse by someone who doesn't need it. There was nothing to feel good about, my job was actively hurting me, the environment and didn't provide anything good to society. All it did was provide more trash for our throw-away culture.
Reminds me of "why we hate engineers" by CS ghost animation on RUclips. You'll be a great addition for sure in the future if you go to mechanical design etc
What I find unusual is that they accepted you for the role, as you are overqualified.
@@gargantooga I have feeling they're probably hoping to promote him lol.
I find this very interesting. Are you solely a machinist, or do you do some of the CAD/design or estimating work as well? I would imagine having the engineering degree would make most employers comfortable giving you additional responsibilities/promotions sooner.
My reasoning is less econ and more practical.
I did retail as an undergrad. After graduating, I knew I never wanted another customer facing job again. Factory work is pretty good. I don't do sales/service and work doesn't follow me home. I don't have to convince anyone about my performance. It's all in a box on my workbench at the end of the day. I answer directly to my boss, lead machinist/programmer, shipping/receiving manager, and quality control inspector. I see all of them around the floor every day.
The best part is that all the social games in the world won't beat physical results. Boss just tells those guys to go and take all that hot air with them.
yup not everyone wants an office job. many just want to do their job and go home. they don't want to be responsible for a project or for a bunch of subordinates.
I hate dealing with people and most service jobs require interactions with people. With manufacturing, i deal with the same people every day with very little surprises.
I mean if you think you don't have to convince anyone then that just means you have a decent boss who isn't a complete ass. If you have some power tripping micromanager then you will definitely have to convince them lol. But anywho, besides the point.
@@Lycaon1765 LOL We had one of those. Boss man told him to get lost and was the happiest we've seen him in the last few years.
You lucky even have a job in college. Is hella tough find job in college towns.
Let's be honest no one has every said a factory job was fun or easy but the wages made it worth it and gave people more purpose than just staring at a computer screen all day
The wages in factories generally suck unless it’s unionized.
Any jobs getting reshored won’t be unionized anymore
factories have to compete with offshore factories. they can't pay massive wages and stay in business. in the old days there was no competition offshore . now there is lots.
@@ronblack7870Yeah. A lot of people miss the fact that, particularly in the U.S., manufacturing jobs were only so good since we were the only industrialized nation untouched by World War 2 and able to supply the rest of the world with goods. As soon as other countries caught up, it was inevitable that manufacturing here would decline (maybe not to the degree that it has, but certainly not far from it). People long for an economy that just can't exist anymore since it relied on a completely different global situation.
@@ronblack7870 We could impose tariffs on those countries then those jobs will return to the US, especially on China.
Most manufacturing jobs are no different than a person staring at a computer. I don't know why people keep believing this lie.
I love that a video about poorly paid service jobs features a poorly made animation at 3:37 where an underpaid editor clearly forgot to enable a mask layer leaving us with a massive black square across the screen. Well done. Extra points for realism.
No QA too.
i doubt his editor is underpaid but this made me chuckle
@@laurent4819 ALL video editors are underpaid.
That REEKS of DaVinci Resolve by the way. That supposed "pro editing software" struggles with transparancies.
Yh sometimes post render they're bugs that aren't your fault
people want simple demanding jobs that you can just go in, do your thing and gtfo with a livable wage.
Yup!
I really disagree. I don't think the people that "want these jobs" want these jobs. They see their parents / grandparents own houses and think that if they get the factory job back they'll own a house.
I worked in a lumber yard and talked to a contractor who was coming in to buy wood, he asked me how I did in school, mostly A's and B's and while he only said "why are you wasting your time here" there was a genuine hint of annoyance/anger with me, the people that actually have worked these jobs don't want them, they work them because they're all they can do and all they know how to do.
Anyway, the world is never going back to that economy. America was only wealthy during that time because it was on the forefront of manufacturing and able to export what it made for competitive prices, that time in the world is over. If you go back to manufacturing, you are competing with china/india/africa, who will buy from you unless you drop costs to those prices and if you drop costs to those prices, you will live like those who are in china/india/africa.
Trades
People will have an iphone and claim they dont have a livable wage
Yes and honestly I would love that. Ditching the work phone i have been carrying everywhere, every minute of my life for the last 15 years, I would do almost anything to get rid of that.
Worked in a factory manufacturing bullet proof vehicles. Good pay and benefits, four day work weeks, lots of overtime, got to travel over seas to fix stuff, and I got to shoot stuff at work. Best job I ever had.
That's dope. But you're supposed to cry and complain that you didn't get to sit down in a chair all day. Did you die?
These videos by "economists" al always make me laugh
@@SubvertTheState ikr
@@SubvertTheState Where’s the part where he says he’s an economist?
@wildfire9280 "how money works"
@@SubvertTheStateI've worked in a traditional factory where I learned some basics of optical machining and now work in a shop making custom optics where I learned far more. The traditional factory job kinda sucked. It's much more enjoyable setting up and programming machines that I then run for a few day or weeks rather than doing one motion as fast as possible all day every day for several years.
I remember reading an article about a decade ago about how a former factory town had been looking forward to a new factory planning to move in decades after the previous one had shut down. Then they discovered that due to much better automation and building a more niche product, they only were looking to hire a few dozen workers instead of hundreds. Even when factory jobs come back, it's not always how people remember them being
At this point, the factories have been closed for so long that nobody remembers just how labor-intensive and skilled such jobs used to be.
Some are better than none.
Working on the robots that do the work instead of just doing the work is a lot nicer and pays better. As it dramatically increases productivity, of course less jobs are required, but there's already not enough skilled labour to fill those jobs.
there is a huge increase in automation but automation is also why manufacturing jobs can pay good salaries and how tangibly investment in equipment can result in lead to tangible safer and more productive jobs better than yester-year. So while manufacturing jobs have innovated into being more productive what have office jobs done, if we want employment for future generations what else can we do?
@@iknowmy3tablesfurther on that topic, automation has a lot of hidden costs (not so hidden in US). Because other than materials and R&D, you need training for people designing, assembling, maintaining and operating said equipment.
Someone needs to pay for all of that. And it's most definitely not the company producing the equipment.
I switched from an office job to blue collar work 2 years ago. Honest to god, best decision I have ever made in my life. I operate heavy machinery and it’s so much fun
Dude yeah, I worked infront of a computer for over a decade and switched to more blue collar stuff. It's fun, I don't feel like my brain is rotting from staring at a screen all day plus I get my daily steps in and lost my back pain from standing and walking around instead of sitting for 8 hours
For real. I just recently went into a factory rather than go back to gov contracts when delivery money crashed. Way more fun and engaging than sitting at a computer all day and way more secure because no one wants it and the washout rate is pretty high.
it was basically, that we learned two things:
1.) at the end of the day, someone actually has to make the physical stuff we are all using. And if you can't, they have leverage over you.
2.) when a lot of people try to get into the same type of work without worker organization, the compensation for that type of work will drop.
to be honest, I actually think that the movement of manufacturing back to developed countries will also have a effect that I haven't seen talked about before: vast incentives towards more automation in manufacturing. Current day LLMs were invented to basically increase productivity in white collar jobs, so that companies with white collar workers in developed countries could get the same done with lower headcounts, with the development costs being worth it because wages in developed countries are pretty high. If manufacturing jobs come back to developed countries, the same incentives apply to manufacturing.
"Worker organization" like when the AMA controls the number of doctors that get licensed. Very beneficial there if one likes shortages.
@@brodriguez11000 Tough luck kiddo, that's how the economy works. Everyone pushes to have more for less, and the way workers do that is by organizing and striking.
In India we have lot of white collar jobs mostly for US clients.
US is costly and there are no jobs because there are few billionares and millionaire who live in US and bring prices up. Rest of y'all are more closer to Indian in service job and Chinese in manufacturing job than your American overlords.
It's time to realize your govt is not serving your interests and only way for having livable wage is everyone all over the world gets a livable wage. As long as there are people to exploit, the wages will keep going down
@@fedyx1544 no, that's not how the economy works. That's how sociopaths work when their customers have no recourse. That is how the economy works when it is run by rent-seeking totalitarians.
That is how the economy fails in the long term because people are only thinking about the short term.
lol
When I look at my grandfather and his brothers, none of them graduated high school. But with manufacturing jobs they purchased homes, had stay at home wives, and multiple children. Then there’s me, I have nothing.
I have a master's in electrical engineering. I make nearly 200k a year. It's pays to go to school.
Congratulations?
Most middle aged men don't have shit. We got squeezed out of society like juice.
@@hwhackYeah, if you're good with math. What about those of us who struggle with numbers? I went to school for digital media, graduated magna cum laude, and the highest I was ever paid was a lousy $13/hr. Now of course I was always praised for my work, but paying me for it always seemed to be the challenge. If it wasn't for VA benefits, I would be homeless. I gave up a lot trying to get a career going. Most degrees are a scam. For what you do, one is necessary. But what happened was every industry wanted educated employees but didn't want to pay for them, so any job outside of retail requires a degree even when you clearly don't need one. It was a scam to get workers to pay forntheir own training.
@@hwhackNo, no it doesn't. Just because you lucked out doesn't mean that everyone else will. Besides, since when did staying alive require a load of debt that most people cannot ever hope to pay back?
Everyone's so disconnected from what people want in life. People just want to work 9-5 and go home without any drama and make a wage that can support all bills with a chance for savings.
How dare you demand the life of a lower middle class person, wage slave!
Why are so many people saying that 9 to 5 is soul crushing? It's way better than doing shifts
@@NeiyMaritz exactly! It's well documented that shiftwork causes adverse health issues.
People need to understand that USA's post ww2 manufacturing boom only was made possible as the Europeans bombed each other to oblivion and were busy rebuilding and most of the world was either colonised or just gained their freedom.
It was a set of very unique circumstances which made that possible which is frankly ridiculous to even try replicate now.
Instead focus on science, tech, finance, banking, startups - which made us rich in the first place .
Few manufacturing like aviation, automobile, semiconductor, steel are worth saving.
Remember your workforce is limited and ageing fast with a negative birthrate. Focus on high yeild high paying specialist jobs instead of labour intensive ones because you have a 4.35 times smaller workforce than china
@@NeiyMaritz 9 to 5 is actually the perfect schedule.
Because you can't build and maintain a feasible economy on starbucks and warehousing stuff shipped from not very reliable nations.
My grandfather got a factory job at GM right after WW2 and worked for GM his entire career, retiring at 55 with a pension. Just died last year, 2024.
Pensions are a guarantee! its great! oh wait, ask United Airlines workers who were entitled to a “pension”. Talk about a rug pull.
Yeah, this is the main point that this video misses. Manufacturing jobs were stable. Nowadays, even the highest paid employees are laid off or quit every three years. You might be able to maximize earning potential like that, but it’s not a stable life to raise children with.
My grandfather finished his enlistment a few years prior to the Vietnam war and also went to work for GM. He was offered an early retirement due to production scaling down and he took it at 51. He’s been drawing a pension from GM longer than he worked for them now.
@@renaissance17the reality is that pensions are a luxury that was never meant to exist. They
only reason they were around was because of the fact the US was the only developed country left after WW2 and had almost no completion. Europe, Korea, and Japan were in ruins, China and India were still third world and undeveloped, south America was mostly undeveloped colonies except for Patagonia (which was almost as rich as the US).
There was no competition and the US had a monopoly on global manufacturing for like 20-25 years.
@@Peglegkickboxer yeah that's kind of the key thing everyone misses about the 1950s. that prosperity would not have existed if the rest of the world hadn't been bombed to hell in WW2 while we emerged unscathed.
that's never coming back, or at least if we're lucky it won't because it would require another brutal world war to happen
Offshoring manufacturing means offshoring all the pollution that goes along with it. That way Americans can preach about protecting the environment while still enjoying modern goods from developing countries that wallow in toxic waste.
Yes and no. Manufacturing can be done in environmentally responsible ways...but those methods cut into the profit margins.
@@chancetempleton3829 yep, i keep telling people that this world order is going no were
The other beautiful thing America does is make gathering resources very costly. With all of our laws protecting the environment, it is more cost-effective to mine (or whatever) over seas.
So that means that as natural resources start to become scarce, America will still have plenty. Thus, we shall remain a rich and powerful country for centuries. Assuming WW3 doesn't kick off with nukes being giving out lile it is an episode of Oprah.
@@chancetempleton3829America usually has stricter manufacturing regulations. Since 1981, they've added regulation EVERY WEEK. Yeah, over 40 years of straight regulation.
So it's just a 'yes'. The other country will do it cheaper and with less rules.
Thank the hippies and eco-terrorists for all that. They are not real Americans.
Biggest issue I've been finding when it comes to applying for any job now is that companies aren't paying people enough to live in the area anymore. It seems like a basic standard but it's rare to see employers actually look at the cost of living and ensure that the wage they offer will actually ensure a person can live in the county.
Why would an employer bother to give an employee a living wage when that's not their problem? Are you high? Get out of that 1950s economy you are dreaming of.
manufacturers have competitors as well that how the world works. if the cost to produce a product gets too high then people buy the cheaper product. people will justify buying the cheaper product even if the quality is poor. they just say they are all crap so what's the difference. or people can't afford the more expensive product. it's realities.
@@ronblack7870 Of course people would buy the cheaper stuff, they most likely don't have a choice.
The closer you and your family are to bankrupt, the more leverage the company has over you. That's where a union would come in, IF YOU STILL HAD ONE
@@TheDragonofRevelation when you don't pay enough you struggle to fill positions and retain talent. I worked at a company that had positions open for years because they didn't pay a living wage. Turnover was high because everyone was always looking for a better job
My brother has his MBA in Accounting. He earns maybe about $63,000 annually.
I am an industrial ammonia refrigeration maintenance technician. I made $122,500 in 2024.
He has some $80,000 left in student loans debts.
I don't.
Your brother must live in a LCOL. One of my accounting classmates got an offer from EY for a starting salary of $90000.
Save this in 20 yeaers time.
@@refraysmusic
He was offered a $90,000 base salary plus bonuses but he opted for a stay-at-home position where he is only required 2 days in the office in the month for meetings.
He's a single father of two and values his time with his children over a paycheck
I'm just saying, it's amusing that I'm doing twice as well (financially) as him when he's got the MBA and I don't.
Three times when you factor debt.
But he has two children; I don't have any. So obviously that's a major factor, too.
Okay but how many weeks out of the year are you on the road?
@ I don't get how he has so much debt. Also an MBA isn't even needed to get a good accounting job. I'm in my senior year and only have 4k in student loans.
This didn’t address the people who are only able to do factory jobs, not everyone has the ability to “go into the office” and instead have been doomed to generational poverty and over burdened social programs. Most people don’t want to work in factories but we need production in America for those with no other options
Even factory workers are doomed to poverty nowadays unless you become a lead earning over $34.00 an hour. Where I am at, most shops don't want to pay you above minimum wage or slightly above it. The ones that claim to do so tend to be liars about it.
@@TheDragonofRevelationOnly in crazy states like California. Those states do that to themselves.
People in service unconnected to manufacturing seem to have an extreme level of arrogance towards manufacturing jobs. I guess its because of insecurity. Ironically, its the service jobs that will the ones that will be destroyed by automation since automation makes such jobs redundant without expanding the service sector. You automate a process in a factory, you end up making it so the factory can expand and hire more people than before. You automate a McDonads, almost everyone is out of a job. Also, automation in manufacturing isn't as easy as some people seem to think. Its been going on for generations but there are limitations. Trim pressing, for instance, seems like something that could be easily automated until you realize that that process involves a lot of scrap metal that can get stuck in the dies and robots really can't handle dealing with that stuff.
@@ryelor123 often works the other way around, people doing manual labour often think people who do white collar jobs have a stick up their ass. It's a big part of why people are voting against the Democrats who they perceive as representing corporate America, whereas Trump purports to represent the interests of manufacturing workers. People are just crappy about people who aren't like them.
@@TheDragonofRevelationyou could make that wage without being a lead. You have to look at processing operation jobs. I’m at year 3 and a half and I’m at 30.63 an hour. 3 more years and I’ll be past 34 an hour. Some processing jobs start you right off the bat at 35-42-48 an hour but you do need 4-5 years of processing experience and they are demanding more skills now like electrical, CNC, Mechanical certifications etc
A lot of people also found there office jobs to be soul crushing, it’s all we complained about in the 90s
There's a reason there was a movie called, "Take this job and shove it".
@@brodriguez11000 plus fight club... office space.. falling down....
their
Working in a factory is also soul crushing
@ so then it must be the quality of the job environment, not the job type that matters
I don't know about all of this.
I got a certification for my trade but all the factories near me prefer to hire foreigners and paying them peanuts instead of hiring people like me.
Capital Business Owners seek the cheapest labor, so to maximize their end of season profit margins. It's a systemic process that is done subconsciously.
That's the part many people don't realize. Manufacturing jobs left because the value of most of those jobs decreased too much compared to white collar jobs. If those jobs come back, the value of those jobs won't magically increase. They will pay a fraction of what the high-skilled manufacturing jobs that remained in the US pay. So they will go to the desperate or to foreigners shipped in from a country with a much lower standard of living.
I've worked in a factory in Netherlands. There were like 3 Dutch and everybody else were imigrants (mostly Poles and Bulgars)
you can always ask for the same salary as a foreigners
@@kyleolson9636 You can fix that with tax policy and not signing those stupid trade deals. One of the issues with things like the WTO is that they don't allow countries to enact environmental regulations or worker's rights if they cut into trade.
>Why Do We Want Them Back So Badly?
Because you don't need $200k of nondischargeable student loan debt to make a living that can support a family, and the "go to college or you'll be poor" line turned out to be a boomer lie.
Some basic reshored manufacturing job is going to pay you a wage that supports a family.
Be lucky if pays over $20 an hour
Also no reason anyone is racking up 200k in student loan debt for a 4 year degree unless their sub 80 IQ.
stop blaming boomers for your poor decisions.
The only problem is that if manufacturing jobs do move back here, they will either automate them, or they will no longer be valuable. The people demanding these jobs don't seem to understand that they will NOT get what they ultimately want, which is resource security and good paying jobs with benefits. Those will now only exist if we organize (like unions) and fight for them. But that would mean turning corporatism and late stage capitalism on its head, so they don't want that either.
Also, not everyone wants to work in jobs where they can be fired and blacklisted from entire industries if someone they say gets misconstrued by a co-worker dealing with his or her own problems. Many service jobs(like in tech) are full of miserable people trying to hurt each other as much as possible.
@@ronblack7870 Boomers aren't really responsible for the college thing but they still suck because they essentially sold the country's future to foreigners.
I think it’s important for national security reasons to be making important stuff at home in case of war, natural disasters and trade disruptions. On top of that, keeping fundamental skills alive for knowing how to make things seem important. I got trained to work as a machinist, but it was hard to find challenging work for competitive pay in my area. I have gone back to school to study medicine, because money.
Because of a few things:
1) It’s good for a country to be able to provide things for itself (remember COVID shipping issues?)
2) They offer many entry level jobs for low skilled workers
3) They offer a lot of upward mobility for someone without a college degree or with one! Not Everyone is made for higher education or has the desire to be an engineer.
4) They can pay fairly well and have decent benefits
People need to understand that USA's post ww2 manufacturing boom only was made possible as the Europeans bombed each other to oblivion and were busy rebuilding and most of the world was either colonised or just gained their freedom.
It was a set of very unique circumstances which made that possible which is frankly ridiculous to even try replicate now.
Instead focus on science, tech, finance, banking, startups - which made us rich in the first place .
Few manufacturing like aviation, automobile, semiconductor, steel are worth saving.
Remember your workforce is limited and ageing fast with a negative birthrate. Focus on high yeild high paying specialist jobs instead of labour intensive ones because you have a 4.35 times smaller workforce than china
@@anonymous.2471you’re also forgetting the fact that the Soviet Union its main rival was on the brink of collapse after being the one to face 70% of the German Army and beating it as they were the ones who got to Berlin. They lost a total of 27 million people along with China who also lost 20+ millipn people in WW2. Now though that both these super powers have recovered from their WW2 disasters they have regained their spots as one of the most powerful nations in the world and is an equal rival to the US and its EU allies.
@@anonymous.2471I found out that the biggest propaganda of all is that everyone forgot it was the Soviets who truly beat the German army. Not the Americans.
@@Truthorfib yeah ussr was so stable and prosperous that it ultimately collapsed.
It's a joke if you think Russia is a superpower. Remove Russia's nuclear arsenal from them and Russia will be a joke.
The only reason why eu and USA don't take Russia lightly is due to nukes, they know Russia is crazy. Even North Korea and iran are crazy.
China has state capitalism, have been found guilty of stealing intellectual property of other nations are copying it. They have huge population which helps in their manufacturing sector ( low wages) . China is facing tough times right now, as their population decreases, they know that they cannot continue to be the world's factory. Even Chinese are looking to diversify thier economy through STEM fields.
@@anonymous.2471 this makes too much common sense to ever be used.
When will you tell your subscribers about Moonacy protocol? By then, I’ll already be a millionaire!
A significant amount of modern manufacturing is producing goods and items that will immediately wind up in the trash. Clothing especially, but also toys, decorative items, furniture, etc.
Even if we could get these jobs back, would we want the jobs that objectively create goods that are on a pipeline to the trash? These jobs create pollution and waste, and we’d be better off if more people took up the creative and craftsmanship side of manufacturing to create long lasting and sustainable production.
I agree. People should really try to maintain in good condition what they already have. That requires being handy, but people nowadays are too stupid and alienated for that.
If you make a good product and it immediately goes into the trash, that's the customer's fault and the customer's problem. They already paid.
@
Hey, I’ve got a video for you to watch called “you’re getting screwed by free returns” which details exactly how if a customer buys a product and decides they don’t want it, they’ll return it for a full refund, and the company usually just throws it away because we overproduce so much stuff that it’s not even slightly worth trying to resell it. When I said they immediately wind up in the trash, I wasn’t kidding, they don’t even get used by consumers. Add on planned obsolescence which turns even more stuff into garbage, forcing us to buy even more stuff and it should be immediately obvious that this is almost entirely the fault of the companies, not the end consumer.
So I actually do work in a non union, light manufacturing job (I don't make steel, cars or heavy stuff like that) in the United States and this video brings up a lot of good points, but I think it misses a few as well.
A bit of background: I am college educated (Bachelor's in History), white, and male. I won't say where the job is or what I make, but I will say I took the job for two reasons. First, I moved to the city where the factory is located and it was the best paying job I could get on short notice. Second, I do not intend to work this job forever. I'm actually trying to start a business and this is simply a paycheck to tide me over until I can make enough money to function on my own.
I actually like my job, although I may be a bit of an exception. Yes, I work 12 hour shifts that are hard on my body and social life, and the pay isn't enough to live a comfortable lower middle class existence (although you can blame that on the fact that I have a lot of expenses) but it's enough to afford rent, food, and all the things I need to buy. Also, I get solid benefits and it's nice to have a job that actually respects my time. I work three days one week and four days the next week, and once I clock out I have no obligation to my employer at all. Plus, there are quite a few opportunities for furthering my education and there is a sense that my employer does listen to me when I have a complaint.
However, I will say that my job is kind of living on borrowed time and I am a massive exception to the norm. Automation is no joke, and I can see machines that once took six people to run be replaced by machines that can do twice the parts with half the people. Second, the only reason I have this job is because the company I work for likes to keep production close in order to maintain quality control. Also, while scaling the corporate ladder from where I am is possible, the number of people who do my kind of job has massively expanded, which makes competition fierce.
So there's my two cents. The video does a great job of talking about the politics of it all and how the rose tinted nostalgia glasses are strong, but I hope I can provide a little extra insight into the issue from the ground floor.
Honestly with AI we're gonna see that with white collar work too. Analysts, MBAs, accountants, programmers aren't being replaced completely, but they're able to do more work using these tools than they were before, which lowers the required workforce size
"Automation is no joke, and I can see machines that once took six people to run be replaced by machines that can do twice the parts with half the people."
"the number of people who do my kind of job has massively expanded, which makes competition fierce."
I'm a bit confused. How can both of these simultaneously be true? If new machines are rolling out that can make twice as many lights for half as many people, wouldn't your company be slimming down it's workforce so they don't have to pay useless workeers? How has the number of people increased? Is your company just hiring randos, keeping them on for like nine months, and then firing them with a promise of 'we might hire you back for another nine month stint next year'? Or is demands for lights going through a ridiculous increase where even making 300% more lights isn't keeping up with the rising demand?
@@2GGop Agreed. I don't think AI is quite there yet, but we are on the threshold of something similar to what we saw with the artisan weavers in the early days of the British Industrial Revolution.
@@FallingPicturesProductions Yeah, that's a fair question. Again, I'm not going to go into particulars, but I think I can clear up some of the confusion.
The factory where I work doesn't just throw out the old machines once new ones come online. If they can keep a machine from the 1980's running then they do. This has meant that the factory floor is a bit of a museum when it comes to the machines we use. They're still updated to be safer, but you can see where better programming and better robotics take over and make the machines smaller and more efficient. That's why I say that automation is no joke.
The second point is that we're just making more parts here in the United States and other places. The cost of Chinese manufacturing is going up due to energy prices, demographic issues, and people just wanting better pay for their work. Couple that with the fact that we build a lot of parts that are fresh out of the R&D labs (China's respect for copyright is famously lacking) means that we've moved the factories out of China and some of it came back here. We always made stuff in the States, we're just making more of it here now, which is how we can grow.
Finally, in regards to your question about our hiring practices, sadly it's not for me to say.
Hope this helps!
I am a robotics engineer (Canadian but working for an American firm remotely), we have a hard time hiring anyone with any robotics knowledge.
Bringing back manufacturing here is possible, but we need ppl with the right knowledge, and it's not something easy to find, unfortunately.
I'm a union machinist on the shop floor & I love my job, has a good mix of hand work deburring the parts with some altering of parameters in the code to customize the parts I'm making.
I like the physical labor side to it as well because I'd go insane sitting all day or reading/responding emails.
The annoying part is having to hold the hand of management & explain scale of things & explain how it'll affect the function of parts, or having them use language that seems like they know what their talking about until they say some nonsense about the functioning of measment equipment, & then treating the use of a pair of calipers as a difficult skill (they're like a ruler/measuring tape on rails). It just feels like learned helplessness / weaponised ignorance.
If you're rushing the training of reading a caliper or a micrometer then yes, it is difficult.
A societal reason for why we want manufacturing jobs; we've seen the damage that is done when the bottom rung of men have no sense of purpose.
The office workplace and the service industry heavily discriminates against Autistic men by virtue of how they are structured. These autistic men are then left vastly underemployed or unemployed in general.
Manufacturing jobs that dont require the same level of soft skills as Service and Office jobs would be a godsend
Story of my life. I spent 30 years in Mnfg jobs precisely because I could not do Service or Public facing roles comfortably. People who were very good at these roles ran rings around me in those roles.
I was adequate in the factory jobs.
As time passed and automation and team work became more and more important I struggled to keep up with the demands of the work and had to quit working 15 years ago.
Only that a friend of my wifes had a son with autism did I get diagnosed at the age of 52. A bit late to do anything about it but it explained my career choices and the struggle I encountered in later life at work.
Work changed and I could not adapt to the change.
Back in the 1970's no one knew much about autism and I had slipped through the cracks regarding social and educational supports which are now part of modern life in Ireland where workplaces are crying out for labour and more likely to hire people with disabilities than in the job-hungry past.
With modern supports and attitudes towards neural differences there is hope that people on the spectrum can work in jobs and earn enough to be partly independent in their working lives.
Factory jobs don't have to be tough AF, factories just have to invest in more employee comfort like a stool to sit on when your have pauses or slowing down the line a bit or equipment to make lifting heavy things like a windshield easier.
But that would cut into out profit margins.
We need factory jobs because if a war breaks out you suddenly lose all the manufacturing capacity and resources you had before it broke out.
I agree it's a mistake to pay companies to make factory jobs, we should instead write laws that say all companies that wish to sell their product or do business in the united states needs to have a certain percentage of their workforce up to 50% in the US and that they need to pay US taxes regardless of if their headquartered in Ireland or some other tax haven.
We 100% need that stick.
Precisely, and keep in mind that by offshoring all this stuff, we also offshore the ability to keep our nation safe from potentially defective products coming in from overseas. It's a lot easier to visit all the factories in the US, than to worry about the factories overseas where the local government might not care at all about the harm that's done here. And good luck suing a foreign factory with no ties to the US here, or possibly anywhere else.
Not going to work. China is way cheaper for manufacturing and India for services and both countries make 50% of world population.
If they need to have 50% of US workers to sell in US , there will be only Marketing companies left who outsource manufacturing to companies in India and China and put on their label (which is case now as well). And if you force them to manufacture in US itself the prices would rise about 4-5 times for US while they would stay cheap for rest of the world because why would they buy from a company when they can get same stuff from china at fraction of price.
Only way out is for US citizens to stop thinking that world is limited to them, and only when whole world comes out of poverty and there is no one to exploit , the problem resolves
@@Xoxososowi We're already seeing manufacturing moving to cheaper places than China and if we cut back on the useless crap we don't really need, it wouldn't be an issue to manufacture most of the stuff we need with an investment in tools and equipment.
@@Xoxososowi All we have to do is put tariffs on Chinese and Indian products. That way, it will encourage American companies to bring back those jobs. In the long run, that will make American made products cheaper than Chinese products. Why should we compete with those countries with almost no workers' rights and safety laws?
Don't you mean American companies that wish to do business in the US? Because the US has plenty of companies that sell their products overseas but don't have a location there, or hire employees (or if they do, they pay minimal taxes and exploit employees for shit wages) so it would be off for other companies to have to pay to sell their products in the US.
As somebody who’s worked in the manufacturing field and has a bachelors degree I can tell you you I learned so much more from real life work experience then in college. Whether it be interpersonal communication skills, critical problem-solving, and even financial literacy. Both are beneficial, but through my years everyone I’ve met in the manufacturing industry could easily get a bachelors if they wanted to, but rarely anyone I know with a bachelors could work in manufacturing and fabrication.
What we really need to start doing is diversifying the skills of young people. The reality is an 18-year-old could go work a laborious manufacturing job for two years save up enough to pay for almost all of his college, and graduate with work and even maybe managerial experience.
Since the Pandemic I been working at Amazon...took me about 6 months but I finally came to the realization:
That just going to work, doing my job, getting Solid benefits, excellent insurance & then going home...no meetings/no phone calls/no reports & no responsibilities
*Was less stressful* then owning my own small business for almost 25 yrs before covid.
Edit: p.s $24 an hr may not seem like a lot to some...really depends on where you live & how much debt you have... but either way its not bad pay...just to throw some sh** in a box AND have a *WHOLE* Life (except peak :)❤
I worked contract at a chocolate factory. I loved it even if it was exhausting. If I could do it for anything even close to what boomers paid themselves to do similar work, I would stick with it for my whole life. I got muscles from it and stress bonding with ~5 foot tall Latinas and Filipinas was an added bonus.
Most productive jobs are honorable occupations. But money matters.
How come our workplace, healthcare, and housing all appeal to luxury options? We designed an elitist economy no one can afford.
Capitalism. Number must always go up.
Because the upper 1%-5% of any group have more purchasing power then the other 95-98% combined. It's more enticing for any service or product to shill out to the most elite group because a tiny amount of elites choosing to drop ridiculous sums of money on your venture can keep your venture afloat forever without having to worry about serious book balancing. Meanwhile if you actually focus on the average person your company will always be struggling to get by because all it takes is one economic strain (not even a collapse or recession, just a brief strain) and a large swatch of the average joes can get fired or chose to not purchase your service/product in favor of a necessity like food or shelter.
Traditionally factory floor work didn't require a college degree. If each manager has 10 direct reports, then you need (about) 10 times as many workers as managers. Not co-incidentally "A" students are about 10% of the class. Everyone can't be CEO or even management. Everyone doesn't need to go to college.
everyone cant be ceo or management. but everyone wants their kids to be as successful as ceo/management
@@theX24968Z because no one wants to honestly address their child's abilities, out of fear it makes the parents themselves look bad.
People just yearn for what boomers had. Factory jobs that, which sure can be tough, at least were a way to go in, do a job, get out, and make a wage that could afford you a house, car, family, etc
Perhaps the very oldest Boomers, those who turned twenty in 1965, but by the late 1970s, offshoring manufacturing jobs had already begun. By the time the last Boomers turned twenty in 1984, the number of high wage manufacturing jobs had already begun to fall precipitously. The transition to an economy based on service sector jobs began in 1980 and was fully in place by 1995. The term "rust belt," referring to towns, cities, and states that once hosted manufacturing, especially heavy industry, was coined in the 1980s. The demise of manufacturing jobs was even highlighted in certain popular music of the day, songs like "Allentown" by Billy Joel, as well as, "My Hometown" and "Born in the USA, by Bruce Springsteen. So, while it might be true that some Boomers enjoyed the relative luxury of high wage manufacturing jobs in the late sixties and seventies, they were also losing those same jobs in the 1980s as increased foreign competition and the export of manufacturing to Asia and elsewhere began decimating manufacturing jobs.
People wanting an end to the "Career" lifestyle isn't talked about enough. Corporate America pushes you to make every part of your life about work. There's this very hostile attitude towards people who only want to do what they're actually paid to do.
@@jamesrogers47 Yup, when I graduated from high school in 1983, there was much of nothing. I was the first of Gen X. So I worked my own ventures. I was lucky to dodge the 2016 economic collapse, bought an affordable house, and retired at 52. Most of my friends my age and younger were not so lucky. Due to inflation, I am working again, out of my garage, which involves some manufacturing. I no longer drive, as that's a luxury I can no longer afford. Tough times again.
Automation and AI isn't necessarily a bad thing. The problem is is that it's controlled by, and for, the rich to get richer. If these means of production were owned by workers they would be controlled by and for the purposes of the workers instead of an absentee ruling class that increase their dividend and capital growth faster than wages will ever keep up.
The average value for an hour of work in the US is $86 per hour, which is the US GDP divided by total hours worked by all employees. The median hourly wage is $20 per hour, and the average is $28.
So one third of US productivity goes to workers, and two thirds goes to the owners of capital. That is a pretty messed up ratio. It's probably going to take guillotines to fix this.
Yet, I've never heard of the UAW making a car or even car parts. Having to deal with employees is such a hassle.
@@kyleolson9636 I think you’re missing a category. I’d say closer to 25% each to labor and government (taxes) and 50% for owners. Definitely need to push some of the owner share toward labor and do some work on how the government 1/3 is spent.
That figure was pre-tax income. The owner's cut is actually even larger
@ The government isn't a category. The government just consists of employees, and payments made to citizens and external companies that are made up of employees and owners of capital.
Britain went even further than the U.S., Canada and Australia. Not only was most of the manufacturing offshored, the remaining industry left was sold off to the highest foreign bidder. Cadburys, Jaguar, Land Rover, Bentley, British Steel, Boots, most of the Telecoms companies, most of the Water providers, most of the energy companies. I could go on. It’s been a disaster for Britain.
I’m aware reshoring industry is not a simple task, but some industry returning is preferable to the current situation. I’m certain lots of people would prefer a more meaningful form of employment than being in a fake email job, sorting and delivering Amazon parcels, or working soul destroying retail jobs.
I worked at a factory making car parts for a few months. Can't belive people manage to work there fro like 15 years, I'd go nuts. And I was "secretly" listening to audio books with a earpro looking ear bud
some people can just do repetitive jobs all day some go nuts like you . i can't do the repetitive stuff my mind goes nuts.
I did something similar and I loved it. No office politics, no having to convince my boss that I do good work since I can just point to my accomplishments, and most importantly no dealing with people because people suck.
My uncle worked in a steel mill, retired in 1985 after 32 years. His family had healthcare and he made equivalent to 60 bucks an hour in today’s wages. The mill paid the federal government taxes and city property taxes taxes that did things like build new schools. On a diploma he was able to own a home and live a middle class life. That’s a much better deal than the service economy provides. Sure it’s work, but work doesn’t kill people, being lazy does. It’s hilarious hearing the media and politicians trying to tell working people they’re better off. They make less than a 1/3 if that and will never own a home. What did we gain? Billionaires.
I think a lot of people are talking about Moonacy Protocol already. Why aren’t you mentioning it?
3:00 because those at a bunch of do-nothing jobs that somehow get paid loads of money. It’s insanity
Something similar is how college tuition has risen so quickly over the decades due to the overbloated size of administration positions and needing to cover the payroll cost of them
I agree - and most people in the 1970s and 1980s would recognize those jobs as sinecures and political favors.
the jobs are fake, the money is fake the economy is fake....
and moreso the fact that colleges kept making more and more amenities to attract more and more students to get that sweet sally may government cash.
@@theX24968Zyup. When the government guarantees money, they can't not pay it.
It is highly poilitisized and nostalgia is a part of it. Manufacturing sucks most of the time. Rarely you can find a company that spends a lot of resources on making it easy on its floor workers.
I’ve worked and consulted at several factories in North America. Yes it’s hard work but there are tons of opportunities to specialize and move up - it’s not just mgmt. - technical expertise in assembly, welding, painting, etc. comes with its perks.
What I’ve found interviewing tons of line workers is they like the “freedom” and simplicity. Most line workers don’t have to think m, like seriously they have a simple job and they just do it every day. With that comes the “freedom” you clock in and clock out and for the most part no one is micro managing or even bothering you at all as long as you are hitting your times / numbers. Also, a good percentage of folks had nothing going for them (ex gang, ex felon) and they truly felt like these jobs were a chance at a life. Yes the work can be hard but for the most part (from all I’ve seen) it’s quite low stakes.
Overall manufacturing was / is a good way to land a “steady” job, learn some skills, and get home every night without having a degree or certification.
There isn't that much difference between working in an office as a grunt, and on the factory floor as a grunt besides physical vs mental labor.
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I am steve, as a child i yearned for the lines 💀 💀
CNC machinist here too. Trying to leave, but it's not because the jobs are bad, I'm just not good at them. There's a lot of people who shouldn't work in offices for the same reason. I might be the only person left in the country who ought to have a desk job but is on the factory floor instead!
There's something mildly transcendent about having a manufacturing job - you never doubt that you're doing something for a reason. No bullshit jobs here, you turn raw material into things people want. You might not fully understand what you make, but you know you make SOMETHING, and if you simply ask around you can figure out all the nuts and bolts of your little piece and how it fits into the larger product. I've seen a few parts I made out in the wild, or at least parts like the ones I made.
Assembly work and other bottom-level stuff does indeed tend to be total dogwater but if you just go one level up you get into some worthwhile career paths that can take you interesting places (and occasionally a hospital). I think the health issues are a little overstated, because of how all-important college degrees are in the culture right now people who do trades tend to be zombies who never had a personality for ambition and they get stuck doing the bad work forever, and some of that could change if more people who gave a damn entered the field and actually tried to get better roles. I bet that's a lot of why manufacturing today still sucks, it's done exclusively by dead skin cells and trespacitos and they'll put up with anything as long as they can pay the bills.
There's a trend today to sell the trades as a way to get the life you were promised as a college grad and it's not entirely wrong, only mostly wrong. The money's not much different. You don't have student debt if you do what I did, but you also don't always have AC on the site. The paychecks cap out much sooner unless you start your own business and some people want that to be the end goal anyways. YMMV. Automation is five years away no matter what field you're in (and what year it is), but if you're really worried, consider this: Once we can automate robot repairs we're in a post-scarcity society anyways so maintenance people will have the last jobs on the earth.
Make a video. Please.
This was very interesting to read, thanks and good luck
I'd say because of a number of reasons:
1. Proper automation of the right systems drastically reduces risks associated with manufacturing, as well as reducing their, "toughness".
2. We're not beholden to some hostile foreign power for our manufactured products.
3. It keeps more money WITHIN the U.S. instead of subsidizing hostile foreign powers.
4. We can control the ethical environment of the manufacturing to ensure that hostile foreign powers aren't using slave labor to make our products, be we would be making our products.
5. Instead of being dirt cheap crap that'll break in 5 months produced by a hostile foreign power, we can control the quality of the product and force it to be built to last.
6. I could think of another, but I'm too lazy right now.
They're all better than dealing with Karen in HR. 😂
I think some people forget that we don't all want an office job. Remember back in school when half the class would be disengaged? Well, those people in my year group are now the best off because they all went to get a trade. More over, they WANTED to get a trade.
One man in a van can easily clear $200,000 working for themself, just by changing light bulbs, clearing 'U' traps in sinks, checking fire extinguishers etc...
Plus, a lot of pride also comes with producing stuff. A lot of old people near me used to work in the Holden and Ford factories. Every time my neighbor sees a a Holden Commodore drive past, he stands a little straighter and wonders if its one that HE built.
HMW, you got one big thing wrong-we didn’t simply “figure out management is better.” This wasn’t a natural shift; it was a deliberate strategy that gutted stable jobs while concentrating wealth at the top. Boomers realized and popularized outsourcing because it padded the bottom line, and they prioritized it to maximize profits for executives and shareholders.
The bigger issue isn’t just that manufacturing jobs disappeared-it’s that labor itself is treated as disposable capital. When workers are valued only for their economic output, their security and bargaining power erode. Treating this as neutral economic change rather than a power shift ignores the real harm.
edit: Also, a bit out of touch: I'm from the Rust Belt, believe it or not, people want to work. Were they to come back, I know they would be happy to work these jobs if they were compensated with fair pay, retirement, and union protections.
you want the jobs then throw in all these conditions. that's why the jobs won't come back.
@@ronblack7870 I know-that’s exactly the point. The jobs didn’t leave because people refused to work; they left because corporations prioritized profits over posterity. If posterity is “too expensive,” the problem isn’t the workers...
Yeah, HMW is egregiously off-base here. The offshoring of American manufacturing was not some "natural" economic process. It was deliberately engineered and pushed by both big business and political organizations since the 1980s.
@@chodori2041 No doubt! Boomers (born 1946-1964) were in their 30s to 50s when they started popularizing outsourcing in the 1980s and 1990s-right as they took over corporate leadership. They actively prioritized offshoring to cut costs and boost shareholder profits. NAFTA in ‘94 and China’s rise only accelerated it. By the 2000s, outsourcing expanded beyond manufacturing into tech support, customer service, and even some white-collar roles.
Sounds like HMW may have never been a laborer, nor does it sound like they know any salt of the earth workers, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. We would gladly take these jobs back!
White collar jobs cannot scale beyond a few millions but manufacturing can employ billions directly and indirectly and do not need a highly skilled or educated population that is a very cost effective way to grow an economy to me
The problem is most will be replaced within the next 50 years. Even stuff like plumbing is seeing AI. Ai is rapidly advancing especially the last 8 years. Elon also has so much power now and ofc he wants ai because it help you keep money as a rich person and he tricked alot of poor ppl to back him not knowing he's one of the biggest pushers for AI. I think in like 20- 50 years the unemployment rate will be insanely high across the whole world
@tuelzalt AI is a bubble that doesn't do shit, it's around for a whilr and what real world usage does it have? It's only ral usage is to generate trash content
This! The push for college for everyone maxed out the limited jobs available for people sitting around typing nonsense on a computer. Real jobs that work in the physical world are infinite, tech jobs focused on sitting in front a computer can always be more efficient to reduce workers
There is one huge issue: automation. Manufacturing jobs have become increasingly automated, especially in the high-tech sector. Hence, workers must be highly skilled or educated to complement the automated processes. Low-skilled or uneducated workers who can only do the same tasks as machines will eventually have no jobs.
Not really
Industrial automation is a thing and getting better every day
Depending on what's being manufactured here, expect the cost of items to rise, since Americans command a higher pay. I've always said that the things we buy are so "cheap" is because someone, somewhere down the pipeline is getting screwed and in reality, everything should cost a lot more. We might be about to see that but at least the workers will be compensated fairly...right?
The cost of living can be lower somewhere because there is no housing bubble. Or artificial scarcity of housing (bad zoning regulations). Or because the climate makes surviving easier. So, the stuff you buy is not always cheap because someone got screwed over more. Some problems could be fixed by fixing the housing problem.
@@BewareTheLilyOfTheValley Yep. And expect wages to stagnate too.
When you are in a fairly niche field, the pay would be alright since you are difficult to replace. However, when millions of other people have the same skill set, well, now you are replaceable.
It's better than working retail.
People keep on bashing unions, when unions only represent 10% of the US work force. On the construction industry side that number is only 10.1%. Non union dominate the US market share.
I actually work in manufacturing right now. The job has a lot of travel between the various semiconductor clients in the USA. It is honestly not a bad deal if you can find the right company to work for. Low requirements for college mean you do not need to take on loads of debt, if any. I even got into the industry not through college but through the Army. So many less "desirable" job/career paths can hide diamonds in the rough if you are willing to look and move around.
White collar and service jobs have pushed the main concentration of jobs into big cities that are extremely hard to earn enough to live in.
Service jobs will and have been the death of America, industry built this country, and only Industrious people can save it.
It has started with the industrial revolution and those were not those things
I feel like this video misses the main cause of the problem: automation means we have more labour than we need and that will only keep getting worse.
Automation means we can produce more with less work. So why not work less?
When some dude in a suit tells you that factories can work 24/7 without human intervention, that dude doesn't know wtf he is talking about.
I did install, repair, and maintenance work on these kinds of machines. It's a pretty damn good job. And if you don't do your maintenance then you're gonna do some repairs. And if you don't do the repairs then you're gonna need a new install. It's inevitable. *inevitable* You can trust me on that. I know better than the guy in the suit. These machines have to be worked on. More certain than taxes.
How often would a machine need to be repaired? How many people do you need to repair it? 5? 6, maybe? Which means the machines can run until they have served their purpose, and they only need a handful of people to keep an eye on them for half a day or less. The man in the suit also knows what he's saying.
@@lunayen No. The man in the suit doesn't understand how things work because he's just a man in a suit with soft hands that doesn't know how machines work.
The fact of the matter is that doing install, maintenance and repair on those kinds of machines is a GOOD job and they can't find enough people to do it and the pay is good and it provides massive opportunities for a lot of people. Better opportunities than working as the typical operator that's for damn sure. And there are also teams of engineers behind them. And there are also other manufacturing facilities full of workers who make those machines. I know this because I did that job dude. I'm telling you how it is.
You want these factories here. They absolutely, unambiguously, undeniably create a bunch of jobs. Not the same jobs. But there are tons of jobs that have to be done.
Automation is a labor multiplier, not a labor replacer. And the sooner we silence STEM illiterate voices saying otherwise the better off the whole world is going to be.
2 reasons.
1. A shop floor is easier to organise, the product, and risks are more exposed/easier to see. That makes it easier to make the case that works deserve appropriate compensation for the their sacrifice, time and safety. We yearn for jobs with the security and pay and organised workplace gives.
This also benefits unorganised workplaces too , because workers can always point out that they xan be better compenzated next door, by swapping to a union job. So this effect ofnunion density ripples out across the economy it doesnt just inprove the lives of the organised workers, its the rest too.
2. Manufacturing has a clear defined purpose, in an era of truly unparaleled alienations from goods, services and people, people yearn for meaning. Making a product or being a part in making a physical product is an easy salve on all questions of purposelesness in line. People want to feel useful manufacturing by nature of its more exposed end product is rewarding.
it's also worth mentioning that a lot of production is done in shift, sometimes at night. Sitting in the office where it doesn't matter when you come in is pretty nice actually.
Investing in stocks is planting a tree for your future; with patience, it will bear fruit
Just like a tree, investments need time and care to reach their full potential
I've been in touch with a financial analyst ever since I started investing. Knowing today's culture the challenge is knowing when to purchase or sell when investing in trending stocks, which is pretty simple. On my portfolio, which has grown over $900k in a little over a year, my adviser chooses entry and exit orders and now i can plan for a better retirement
Mind if I ask you to recommend this particular coach you are using their service? Seems you've figured it all out
Gabriel Alberto William is the financial advisor I work with. Most likely, the internet should have his basic info, you can make a research with his full name
I just google his name and his website popped up immediately. I'm very much impressed and i will email him right away
The problem with bringing manufacturing back to the USA is that only rich people will be able to afford those goods, and there won't be enough jobs to boost the economy, as the rest of the world won't be customers. When America was "great" we had manufacturing and little competition. Those days are over.
I love my job working in the woods logging. Getting 150,000 pounds of truck and wood out to the asphalt using a snowmobile trail is hard work. But every load feels like I conquered something, like I was able to bend nature to my will. It's really rewarding, and I don't regret dropping out of college to do it. I also make more money than the guys I went to college with, and the cost of living in a rural area is way lower.
Manufacturing jobs were only a sweet gig because the rest of the industrialized world’s manufacturing capacity got destroyed in WW2, so we had zero competition until they rebuilt. That era is never coming back.
Tariffs
Except our industry got destroyed by theirs so when we rebuild, ours will be far better and the cycle continues. Also, with tech like Augmented Reality developing, manufacturing jobs will soon become easier and much more common.
So you saying.... we need a 3rd world war....?
@@ryelor123 Wut?
@@ryelor123 The us cannot have a strong economy and become a manufacturing power like china. You cannot have it both ways.
There's a reason why companies left USA in the first place,as the us economy got stronger , the products of American companies eventually failed to compete globally until it reached a point where manufacturing in us did not make sense.
USA should therefore start focusing on strategic manufacturing sectors like aviation, automotive and semiconductors . Empower these sectors with tax cuts, maybe subsidise research and development.
Tariffying foreign countries ( which are the largest trading partner of USA) is not the solution.
Niche manufacturing and engineering services will always exist. The 91 recession in Australia finished off a lot of general engineering followed by a wave of Chinese imports. Automation is mainly focused on high volume products but workers are still needed there. Much of the work is program driven, a worker may alternate between a work station and their machine(s). A customer & I discussed this a while back, the conclusion was that a person with both computer skills and a manual qualification was a lot more AI proof than someone sitting at a screen all day. Have observed at least in NZ that many high fliers ran with a certificate of engineering, that is a mix of a trade and technical training. They could always find a degree type to work on a problem.
yea we’re gna need a hell of lot more engineers if we wanna pull this off
I work as an engineer at an Aluminum Extrusion facility and also in fabrication operations, the work is tough but rewarding. We have a lot of team members who have been a part of the organization for more than 30 years.
That’s amazing and it really doesn’t happen with Service corporations who constantly merge, sell off, relocate, and lay off employees left and right. How’s a generation of people going to feel comfortable getting married if they lose their job every three years?
I just hope you're earning $60.00 an hour at minimum for it.
Memba when a high school drop out could get a job at a factory and make enough to support a family, buy a house, car and put their kids through college then after 30yrs retire with a full pension 😢
We want manufacturing jobs because historically that was a time period where we had then purchasing power, and our money went further.
People need to understand that USA's post ww2 manufacturing boom only was made possible as the Europeans bombed each other to oblivion and were busy rebuilding and most of the world was either colonised or just gained their freedom.
It was a set of very unique circumstances which made that possible which is frankly ridiculous to even try replicate now.
Instead focus on science, tech, finance, banking, startups - which made us rich in the first place .
Few manufacturing like aviation, automobile, semiconductor, steel are worth saving.
Remember your workforce is limited and ageing fast with a negative birthrate. Focus on high yeild high paying specialist jobs instead of labour intensive ones because you have a 4.35 times smaller workforce than china .
Manufacturing jobs have an advantage as the investment that a company has to make into the plant and machinery is huge so it is much more expensive to move the jobs somewhere else. Also there are a lot of jobs in manufacturing which have tacit and specialised knowledge. If you lose the guy who knows where to think the machine when it stops working your line goes down, so whilst the lowest paid jobs are rubbish like anywhere, there are more people that would be expensive to replace so it is worth paying them a decent wage.
Broadly the workers can have a bit more leverage than in white collar jobs.
Why Do We Want Them Back?
Absolute Advantage is all fun and games until you realize you can't eat Cash Crops. (or services and information)
History has already learned this lesson. Besides, the economy isn't just about GDP, it's about making sure people have the dignity of work that can provide for a family. Right now, we are experiencing a massive thinning out of the middle class.
If, and I do emphasize IF, because I'm not as well read on this subject, factory jobs can fill out the middle class with profitable, if hard, labor then it's 100% worth it to take a modest hit to GDP and cost to the consumer.
People who work in factories are called working class.
His argument is that the way the government is encouraging this is incorrect. Do not provide subsidies or kickbacks to large companies to bring manufacturing back. Encourage trades, fund trade schools, open new skill share programs, and have more technical electives back in high school, which by the way, we used to have.
The issue is, we have asked all these companies to bring jobs back and already gave them money to do it. But we haven’t lowered any barriers of entry or made it more appealing or even helped those trying to enter the industries in any way
Exactly, at some point in the future there will be a conflict or crisis and foreign manufactured goods won't be available. People selling real estate and insurance to each other has no real value.
@@crochetomania Fair enough. The gap between middle class and working class has absolutely grown since 2008-09. Seems like they were almost synonymous when I was a kid in the 90s. You could still afford a house working at a factory. A good friend of mine was a factory worker who bought his house in the late 2000s, right before his wage was basically permanently priced out of the market.
Middle class people to move to factory jobs are no longer middle class lol
Plus who is going to want to take that hit? Hierarchy of least to most likely to take the hit is company, consumers, government, workers.
3:36 giant black box here!
We rendered this video like 5 times and somehow it waited until the last time to decide not to work 😭
@@HowMoneyWorkscosmic level troll
Haha came for this comment
The "construction worker" measuring the board at 9:33 is the perfect clip to show a lack of skilled laborers. Chef's kiss
I never facepalmed harder in my life when I saw that clip
Bro there’s nothing prettier than a production line. Like scrubbers, mixing chambers and units, God that’s beauty
the children yearn for the 80 hr work week!!
@@AndNowWeDrinkCuts After we cut the DOE, you have to pay for that non-public elementary school education somehow!
@WanderingExistence don't worry about that brotha Yilon Ma got our backs
Man.... i know i do.
I've got a bachelor's degree but I work in a factory making stuff because the pay is better and you physically cannot take your work home with you. I used to be a teacher and all the unpaid work I did on a Sunday afternoon, grading tests or homework, writing student evaluations and the like was always something I hated, because I wasn't paid for it but it's expected. That's another big reason former cubicle denizens are returning to manufacturing because they're tired of constantly being on call and getting no compensation for it and being unable to relax for an extended period.
Also about not finding labor for manufacturing, I had zero clue what I was doing three years ago and now I'm the one people go to with questions, it is very straightforward to learn how to manufacture stuff. The main problem we have with new hires is reliability not skill.
Manual labor enriches the oligopolies like Amazon, and others.
This goes for tech work too for anybody that thinks those jobs are great. If there's a critical bug that comes up and you have the knowhow to fix it now you suddenly have more work to do. Then if you want to be productive at work as you move up in your organization you need to have the problems of work on your mind to brainstorm of what you could do to resolve them, so you can get to work straight away at the office. But at least if you have a noticeable tangible impact, you will get some sort of bonus for your efforts.
You seem to have missed one key point. Some people don't want to sit at a desk all day, working on something that actually gives a real tangible result is infinitely more satisfying than corporate paper pushing.
It goes both ways. We had water technicians cycle through our control center so they could get an idea of what we operators did in order to improve communications and safety. Some of those guys were visibly antsy - they could not bear the idea of being cooped up in an office instead of working outdoors in all weather extremes. A couple of years later when our staffing was expanded, vacant positions were filled by some of those same field workers who had decided they'd had enough of the outdoors, being subject to on-call, irregular hours, etc
@whiteknightcat absolutely, I think its about having options. If the economy has a diverse selection of job types and industries and alows for mobility between them then everyone benefits as there is more opportunity to find what you want to do.
I worked at a concrete precast plant pre 2020 and we got paid $18 an hour with full benefits, a commission on all our products sold and quality assurance bonuses every month that went into an employee reserve account for the 3month off season. In by 7 out by 230 sometimes later with paid/provided lunch and paid shower after and the sweet kicker is the company took us out to a local restaurant and bar 2x a month It was pretty sweet until our company got bought out by a publicly traded pro union company, DEI directed company. Now that company has been run into the ground and now theres no precast plant at all, which i think was the goal.
As someone that has worked in Manufacturing for nearly a decade (in both established and tech startup manufacturing) people don't realize how much more stressful but simultaneously how much more satisfying being in manufacturing is. In contrast to other white collar jobs I've had, Manufacturing demands things to be completed on-time while a million factors compete with each other for yours and everyone else attention.
I'm going to generalize here: There are plenty of terrible managers but I've found unless there's a union those people filter out pretty quickly and if you can make things work better everyone will want it to happen. Watching things PHYSICALLY get built is such and understated beauty especially when it goes onto automobiles like stuff I've worked on and seeing it on the road. A very: "I DID THAT!" moment.
Germany has a robust manufacturing sector that employs a bunch of people despite advancements in technology, I don’t see why America can’t do something similar
It's certainly a big manufacturer, but it's faced a lot of challenges recently in its manufacturing. A combination of global competition, high energy costs and tight regulations have done some bad things to German factories.
@@HowMoneyWorksThe high energy costs are self-inflicted because Germany decided to shut down nuclear power plants in favor of solar and wind. There's plenty of places in the US that have cheap energy thanks to hydro or nuclear plants. Just don't forcibly shut those down and we won't have that issue.
A lot of what Germany makes is precision equipment that the US is rather unsuited to replicating under our current quarter to quarter obsession with growth, Zeiss has been around for ~180 years and does basically only optics. That's great if you want your microscope to do what it's supposed to every time, it's less good for hyping up wallstreet people.
German manufacturing is on the brink of collapse and only survived this long (e*)thanks to a protectionist government. A refusal to innovate or adopt new technologies will not help it in the future
@@oliviastratton2169dont forget about nordstrom 2.
its less dehumanizing than working at a Wendys
I have done both heavy manual labor and am currently an office worker. I find manual labor easier, perhaps because I'm still young, so I can totally see why people want factory jobs if they paid well to be able to afford a home that you can pay in 10 years or less and a decent living.
"It doesnt matter if you FORGE ENGINE BLOCKS BY HAND"
WHAT????? Holy all-knowing macarroni thats a mad string of words in there.
I'm one of those few Australians who work for a company that makes stuff in Australia. The founders of the company in their wisdom made sure the company that bought them (a US one no less) had to keep the company in Australia. Most of raw ingredients come in from abroad simply because it's cheaper to do so (no surprises there) but the final product after all the value add is pretty decent margin. My company is approaching its 20th anniversary of manufacturing these goods in Australia.
Australia is very very good when it comes to developing tech, we're just terrible at commericaliaing it without a foreign company coming in and buying it up.
5:18 that is just TV Dinners isn’t it
I honestly can’t believe this book isn’t getting more attention The Censored Guide to Wealth on Bovolorus really opened my eyes
Bot
Certainly there is a way to make those jobs in the factory more worthwhile and fulfilling, but we always just throw up our hands and say "Well thats impossible".
I’ll be honest, I worked at a Caterpillar factory that made literally any product that was currently high demand. Sometimes we even made ship parts that were so large I stood inside a compressor housing for a ship turbo. Other times we made parts for lawn mowers for other companies that sourced from Caterpillar. Every day was a drastically new product line, and the job was easy. I would do picking, assembly, and on occasion turbo balancing. The people who say the job is hard are usually lazy to be honest, the place I worked had an 86% turn over before lunch. So many people saw that they were going to have to learn the job and keep up EXTREMELY realistic numbers and left. I was required to do 36 kits a day when picking and was able to do that my first week without knowing where any of the parts would be. Sometimes it was boring like when we would have to sort nuts/bolts that were dropped. Was the job ever hard? No not really, the only time it really sucked was when I would have to lift 200lb suspension dampers out of a aluminum lined box that was about 3 feet high because someone broke the tool designed to lift them out and into your picking cart. Some turbos could only be lifted by the compressor housing and it would dig into your fingers, these turbos were like 70 pounds. For people that weren’t physically able to do any heavy lifting or lots of moving or were in wheel chairs, assembly was perfect for them and was pretty easy once you learned how to read blueprints, but now that isn’t required because assembly stations have a computer screen that shows you what to do step by step.
What was sadly overlooked when a factory was sent to China was that the businesses around that factory were left high and dry. Many tooling shops, job shops, restaurants, gas station etc. were shut down when a plant that employed 2 or 3 hundred employees went to Asia. Tax revenue was lost making schools, fire departments and police left unfunded as well. Many cities like Flint Michigan were all but destoyed.
The people yearn for the lines, but it’s definitely not the assembly lines😭
... HEY don't do that!
7:40 not only did the unions benefit those in the unions, they drive up wages for everyone in that industry, because who would apply for non-union jobs if union jobs paid so much more? unions recieving higher wages help us all recieve higher wages, be vocally pro-union
Making stuff is tough but at the end of the day you have a solid amount of work you can look back on and take pride in, when I was working in Risk Management I got none of that and went home dreading going into work the next day.
My seminar paper was on this topic. I found that the real culprit was that the shift in credit from firms to households was the real reason.
WW2 drove the manufacturing boom in the 20th century. Government credit allocation into roads and infrastructure to be used by firms to produce was the reason we saw jobs growth.
High taxes in corporations that incentives firms to pay higher wages to lower tax burden and reinvest in growth.
Then their was the shift credit markets saw more potential profitability in household consumption. So you move firms offshore and give credit to the people to consume imports rather than us produced goods.
Bringing back manufacturing jobs won’t do anything. we need a new infrastructure program for this century of production only then will we have a prosperous future.
At school, we're always faced with the question “technical or management”? If we opt for “technical”, it's as if we're at the bottom of the pyramid, but if we start with management, it's as if we've jumped straight to the top of the pyramid.
But this is actually a trap, because we have useless work that doesn't create any real value. If you are really good, a technical expert can make more than any manager. In the end, we're closing the door on technical. On the contrary, when you go technical, you can always move on to management when you want, because companies will prefer someone who knows the business and brings value to it to someone who doesn't...
Plant Automation guy here.
1. We can only build plants so fast.
2. Most plants have trouble hiring. It's hard to find someone who wants to spend their life putting thing a in slot b.
3. Not all tasks can be automated for a acceptable price.
4. We lack the skilled labor to build a lot of things and it will take years to build the skills.
Personally, I hope we start onshoreing more manufacturing, but right now, we only barely have enough skilled labor to take care of what we got.
My advice to young people is to put down the computer or phone, and go learn a trade. We need people with actual skills and almost everyone knows how to work a computer. Go learn to machine, or welding, or something useful. But remember, you ain't gonna start as ceo. I think too many people are afraid of a little sweat. Especially at work. We have gotten soft.
You don't need a DEI officer. There's enough examples of this.
But ... where I live you can barely find employees, it's like people want these jobs to exist but don't actually want to work these jobs 🤷♀️
I find it to be ironic considering the U.S. is otherwise so "independent and entrepreneurial". A factory job allegedly promises a stable career that not only pays you a living wage, but trains you in everything you need to know. All you have to worry about is showing up reliably, doing what you're told, and otherwise not being a problem.