Manufacturing has been a very bright spot for the economy during this recovery. However, it has largely gone unnoticed for two reasons. The political left is wedded to the idea that "US manufacturing is dead" while the political right doesn't want to point out any success story in the economy.
Yet, here we are, with manufacturing doing very well.
4 comments:
I concur. Not only are bookings up compared to last year, we're seeing healthy design activity for the first time in I don't know how long. I've had plenty to do lately.
The doom & gloom surrounding industry comes from two sources, really. First is the media, which never gets tired of parroting a tired meme. The second is actually industry itself. Yes, business is picking up, but all that's really done is give everyone stuff to do again. It's still not a sector that's hiring like crazy; about the only hiring done is bringing back some engineers at places that cut back WAY too far. If you're crawling out of the real estate wreckage looking for a job, the factories don't need you and the R&D guys don't want you.
Was McDonald's counted as a manufacturing company in the previous two recessions as it is now?
Boeing and Motorola are counted as Illinois manufacturers although they manufacture NOTHING in Illinois. How much of your statistics is from US companies who make everything overseas?
Another comment from "anonymous" above. I see that what is plotted is some sort of index normalized to 100 at the trough. What does a graph of absolute dollars or inflation-adjusted dollars or total manufacturing employment look like?
Really? McDonald's is counted as a manufacturing company? Please someone tell me that is not true, or I will be left thinking that the "manufacturing is dead" meme has some truth to it...
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