Three Million Manufacturing Jobs Lost Since 2000

[Shooterman]

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WASHINGTON (AP) - Three weeks ago, Dawn Zimmer became a statistic. Laid off from her job assembling trucks at Freightliner's plant in Portland, Ore., she and 800 of her colleagues joined a long line of U.S. manufacturing workers who have lost jobs in recent years. A total of 3.2 million—one in six factory jobs—have disappeared since the start of 2000.

Many people believe those jobs will never come back.

"They are building a multimillion-dollar plant in Mexico and they are going to build the Freightliners down there. They came in and videotaped us at work so they could train the Mexican workers," said Zimmer, 55, who had worked at Freightliner since 1994.

That's the issue for American workers. Many of their jobs are moving overseas, to Mexico and China and elsewhere.

Just ask Tom Riegel.

He worked for 27 years making Pennsylvania House furniture at a factory in Lewisburg, Pa., until the plant shut down in December 2004. The production was moved to a plant in China, which kept making the furniture under the Pennsylvania House label for shipment back to the United States.

Rigel, 48, who has had health problems, hasn't worked since he lost his job running a molding machine. He says his prospects aren't good given the number of other furniture plants in the area that have suffered layoffs.

"It started with just a few pieces of furniture made in China. Then it snowballed," he said. "Manufacturing was built on the back of the American worker and then boom—one day your job is gone."

Even though manufacturing jobs have been declining, the country is enjoying the lowest average unemployment rates of the past four decades. The reason: the growth in the service industries—everything from hotel chambermaids to skilled heart surgeons.

Eighty-four percent of Americans in the labor force are employed in service jobs, up from 81 percent in 2000. The sector has added 8.78 million jobs since the beginning of 2000.

Although these workers have been largely sheltered from the global forces that have hit manufacturing, that could change as satellites and fiber optic cable drive down the cost of long-distance communication. Today it is call centers in India and the Philippines but tomorrow many more U.S. jobs could move off shore.

Some economists say the United States is experiencing a normal economic evolution from farms to factories and now to service jobs.

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The declines have been particularly painful in the industrial Midwest and rural South, which have been battered by competition from China.

"China has just exploded on the global scene since 2002. Every economy on the planet has lost jobs to China," says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com, an economic forecasting company.

A Moody's analysis found 16 percent of the nation's 379 metropolitan areas are in recession, reflecting primarily the troubles in manufacturing. There have been heavy job losses in a variety of industries from textiles and apparel to paper and furniture.

Critics contend China uses a variety of unfair trade practices from widespread copyright piracy of American products to keeping its currency undervalued by as much as 40 percent to make Chinese goods cheaper in comparison with U.S. products.

On April 9, the Bush administration, responding to growing political pressure, announced the latest in a string of tough actions against China. It filed trade cases with the World Trade Organization accusing China of erecting unfair barriers to the sale of U.S.-made movies, music and books and rampant copyright piracy.

But Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and other Bush administration officials argue that despite the yawning U.S.-China trade gap, President Bush's free trade policies are paying off in new markets that have helped U.S. exports boom.

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High-tech industries, where the U.S. is still seen as having the edge, include pharmaceuticals, medical devices and airplanes.

But even high-tech industries are facing pressure from imports. The U.S. Business and Industry Council, which represents small- and medium-sized manufacturing companies, found that between 1997 and 110 of the 114 U.S. industries it studied had lost ground to imports in the U.S. market. That was the case even in such sectors as computers and telecommunications hardware.

Just the threat of moving high-paying white collar jobs such as computer programmers and graphic designers offshore will likely add to pressures on Congress to erect barriers to global competition, which many economists believe would do more damage than good.

"It is easy to see this turning into some kind of protectionist force which would be harmful," Blinder said in an interview. "We need to turn the debate in a constructive direction—how do you prepare the work force of the future and compensate the losers?"

Factory Jobs: 3 Million Lost Since 2000

[cato2]

Freightliner is owned by Mercedes Benz. Just one more multi national company making a global move to maximize profits.

[Shooterman]

Originally Posted by cato2

Freightliner is owned by Mercedes Benz. Just one more multi national company making a global move to maximize profits.

I wasn't aware they were owned by Diamler-Benz, but as I'm sure you must know, those folks whose jobs have gone to Mexico, are probably not overly concerned about whether Diamler-Benz can maximize profits or not. They, I'm sure, feel as though they have been screwed, blued, and tattooed for Diamler to 'maximize' their profits.

[cato2]

Of course they do. Just like the workers who worked at older plants in America and had them closed because the company wanted to maintain a certain profit. So were was the indignation for those workers when this happened other then the indigenous area where the factory was lost?

Edited to add that the new plants were still in the US. Or New ones built that were replacing potential retooling at existing plants like the Lodi Assembly Plant which was built in order to replace existing jobs here in the USA with robotics.

[Shooterman]

Originally Posted by cato2

Of course they do. Just like the workers who worked at older plants in America and had them closed because the company wanted to maintain a certain profit. So were was the indignation for those workers when this happened other then the indigenous area where the factory was lost?

Edited to add that the new plants were still in the US. Or New ones built that were replacing potential retooling at existing plants like the Lodi Assembly Plant which was built in order to replace existing jobs here in the USA with robotics.

All fine and good but failing to address the plight of those that have lost those jobs. Sooner or later, the chickens will come home to roost and people making a pittance of what they formerly made will not be able to consume as they have been, and consumerism, based mainly on easy money and easy credit, is what drives this economy.

The country basically, has no savings base, to fall back on.