America's Worker Shortage: It's More Than a Manufacturing Issue
The purported aim of Trump's tariffs is to bring manufacturing, and manufacturing jobs, back to America, creating more 'solid, honest jobs' for America's working classes.
But this theory, and it is just a theory, evades a fundamental question: who will occupy these jobs?
A Growing Worker Shortage
The reality is that America currently lacks the workers to take up these hypothetical newly created manufacturing jobs.
According to the latest data, 40% of small business owners had openings they were unable to fill. There are also severe worker shortages in construction (56%), transportation (53%), and manufacturing (47%). In fact, except for the unusual circumstance with the pandemic, America's shortage of workers is now the worst that it has been in 50 years.
This is not just a manufacturing issue—millions of working-age Americans have dropped out of the workforce entirely. Some are receiving welfare, while others are recent college graduates who are unable to find jobs in their field and refuse or are unable to take other jobs, including manufacturing jobs.
You've probably seen these spoof vids, they have a point!
The Graduate Dilemma (again!)
Unfortunately, sociology graduates are one such group cited in this debate. Despite their education, they find themselves not being able to get a job in their career of choice. The unemployment rate for recent sociology graduates is 6.7% and the median income is $48,000. Ironically, they could probably earn that same amount on a car assembly line, but few choose to do so. This points to a broader issue: a culture and skill imbalances between available workforce and available work.
Final Thoughts...
Fundamentally, America's economic future is not merely about bringing jobs back, but having enough willing and able workers to fill them.
The rise in the number of people neither working nor actively looking for work is a far more serious threat to America's economic and cultural vitality than job loss in manufacturing per se. Fixing this problem will demand more than trade policy and tariffs. It needs a more serious look at labor force participation, skills training, and cultural attitudes toward certain kinds of work.
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Think about this for a second:
Factories do come back to 'merica.... but then. (it takes years of course)
BOOM... all AI and robots.
Surprise.. you are still fookd.
Mike Rowe (https://mikeroweworks.org) has been pointing out the mismatch between education and jobs for years. There are plenty of trades jobs in the US that pay very well. However the education system tends to steer people towards college.
And it doesn’t help that a not-insignificant proportion of Gen Z aspires to be influencers. 🙄
The spoof videos are funny but unsettling.
Yeah, it’s kind of ugly out here. No one’s looking to take the opportunities in front of them and the plan set into action isn’t going to work for the people it’s planned for.
We’d rather put blame on a bad economy, a trade war, and no opportunities than work a job we don’t like here…
We voted dude in office but it seems we don’t want what he’s selling at times.
!BBH
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I read an article recently on multiple reasons why the US won't suddenly get lots of new factories. Partly it's a lack of workers, but also the necessary skills, supply chains, power to run them etc. Goods built there will be much more expensive than those from China. The Idiot in Chief seems to ignore service jobs that are a bigger part of the economy these days.
This was interesting on scammy North Koreans taking remote jobs with US companies to make money and steal data.