Is the Goal of Increasing Manufacturing Jobs in the US Realistic?

In a word: "No."

The structure of the US workforce does not lend itself to competing with Asia for semi-skilled manufacturing. In China factories work 12 hour shifts six days a week, and for many factories the work force lives on-site in company dormitories. This means that to staff a plant running full time the factory needs two shifts. In the US (with five 8-hour workdays) to run factories at comparable capacity we would need four shifts - 2x the number of workers.

In addition, of course, the wages in Asia are also much lower. So it is much more expensive and more complicated to run a factory here, and you have a less dedicated (at least based upon proximity) workforce. None of these factors are ever likely to change.

Can we increase manufacturing in the US? Sure. But modestly. We are unlikely to ever return to the manufacturing driven economy of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.

The US is the world's leader in intellectual capital. We are a nation driven by ideas. Our technology powers the world, our medical products keep it healthy and our media products entertain it. We therefore need to invest in and produce knowledge workers. The days of large scale manufacturing driving our economy is over. Rather than devoting resources to reversing this trend, we instead need to invest in enabling workers to compete in the new reality.

What is the new reality? More companies are being created, and the number of employees in them is smaller. The skillsets required by these companies are broader. Workers need to be fascile with technology as a basic skillset, not as a specialization. Workers need to be cross trained across many disciplines, because in smaller companies everyone needs to wear multiple hats. Workers need to be able to think outside the box to be creative problem solvers.

How do we get there? We need to drastically change the way our schools are educating kids. Our schools encourage kids to sit down, be quiet, pay attention, and focus on one thing and/or one teacher for 50-60 minutes at a time. That might be fine for training assembly line employees, but not for developing multi-tasking, cross-discipline problem solvers.

Our kids need to be fascile with technology by the time they reach 3rd grade. They should be able to: search the web; use social media; chose, download and use on-line tools; craft websites; set-up local networks and add devices to these networks; and download and install software to these devices. At a minimum.

They need to be creative problem solvers, and be able to work in groups. Schools need to encourage this creativity rather than enforce rules. There is no "one right answer" for most of the problems in the world, so lets not encourage kids to seek it. Studies have shown that on average creativity declines with age and higher levels of education. We are educating people to be less creative, not more!

The objective of education should not be performance on standardized tests, but development of creativity to enable multi-faceted problem solving abilities. Today our schools and especially our colleges encourage specialization. There should not be a separation between liberal arts, engineering, math and science - they should be integrated. We need engineers who can develop creatively, and we need artists and service professional with the ability to reach us using technology, and teachers who can utilize technology seamlessly.

So, every kid should have access to a computer, and every kid should have access to high speed broadband internet. From the age of four, if not earlier.

This will take investment in broadband infrastructure. And investment in computers and networking equipment at our libraries and schools. Massive investment.

Which brings up another point - factory work may be on the decline, but skilled labor should not be. In order to deploy broadband internet everywhere we need skilled installers. In addition we will need more investment in physical infrastructure - new schools, roads, clean energy installations and extended power grid to serve it. All this requires two things - massive investment and skilled, well paid labor.

Lets not waste a dollar or a minute of time trying to encourage companies to manufacture a $3.00 part or produce a $2.00 assembly in the US. Lets instead spend our time and money developing the infrastructure necessary to support the economy of the future and in schools that will teach the skillset necessary to thrive in it.