You tried to manufacture groupthink, ex-Twitterites. Why not try to manufacture something tangible — and useful?
Elon may have fired you, but the goods-producing industry is recruiting. Bigtime. Last year, Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute found that a “skills gap” could result in 2.1 million jobs in factory employment going “unfilled … by 2030.” Data from the U.S. Census Bureau show that almost a quarter “of the manufacturing workforce is age 55 or older,” and Silicon Valley consultant Glenn Gow blames an attitude shift for the labor challenge: “[Y]ounger workers are avoiding manufacturing jobs in favor of technology, healthcare, and other opportunities.”
Still, despite the demographic and cultural headwinds, U.S. manufacturing accomplished something amazing this summer — it surpassed the number of people employed during its pre-lockdown peak.
Your initial thought must be: How can this be? Don’t pundits, on the left and right, constantly bewail “the deindustrialization of America”? After all, our country “doesn’t make anything anymore.” Right?
Wrong. Manufacturing in the United States is healthy. And it always has been. Contrary to the yammering of greedy union bosses, feeble-minded protectionists, and vote-grubbing politicians, the only meaningful measurement of factory output reveals growth, not retrenchment. For example, in the second quarter of 2022, manufacturing’s real, annualized value added was $2.256 trillion. Five years earlier, the figure was $2.098 trillion. Five years before that, $1.949 trillion.
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