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How can manufacturing output be rising while manufacturing employment is falling?

Ben Christopher

27th April 2011

The graph below (source Carpe Diem) shows how manfacturing production in the US is on the up while unemployment in the same sector is rising. What can explain this anomaly?

image

This is related to previous posts (Protect our low paid low skilled jobs? Really? and Exports good, imports bad?) and is to do with the US losing their comparative advantage in the production of low cost low tech goods to lower cost China and switching their production to high skilled high tech manufacturing output in industries which often require fewer specialist skilled workers and more capital. This is known as factor substitution and is nicely illustrated in the image below where I can count only one worker (found here)

So it seems that stuff is being made in the US, just not the cheap low cost goods that are now produced by countries who can make them for even less. The situation as it stands is clearly explained in the paragraph below and which comes from this article Can China compete with American manufacturing?

So why do so many Americans think the U.S. doesn’t make anything anymore? Part of the reason is that we’re deceived by what we see everyday. Shopping through your local Target, you’re going to see a lot of “Made in China” labels on things like clothing or electronics. The U.S. tends to make stuff that requires more technology and engineering know-how, like planes, semiconductors and machinery. Basic economics tells us that is exactly how things should be. Since China has so many, low-wage laborers, there is no way high-wage America can possibly compete in products that require teams of workers to manufacture, like toys, apparel, consumer electronics, and a lot of other stuff you’ll find on Wal-Mart shelves. Making such products in the U.S. would simply be too expensive; companies that did so would not be able to compete with cheaper imports made in lower-cost economies. But the U.S. still is very competitive in the types of products that demand a high level of technology, engineering and capital to produce. In such industries, wages don’t matter quite as much, and the U.S. can capitalize on its clear advantage over emerging markets like China in expertise, technology and innovation. That’s why the U.S. sells Boeing aircraft to China, and the Chinese sell blue jeans to Americans.

Ben Christopher

Now teaching in Dubai.

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