One of the central themes of last year’s presidential election was the loss of American jobs to overseas locations. The common refrain is that the United States no longer manufactures many products and that American companies are shipping jobs out of the country en masse.
The issue, however, is more complex than can be explained in a Donald Trump tweet-storm, and it is not nearly as dire as campaigning politicians would like the public to believe. A report last year determined that the United States has the world’s second-most competitive manufacturing economy, behind China. Most important, according to Fortune magazine, global executives predict that by 2020, the United States will surpass China on that list.
All of this was evident in a recent article by Columbian reporter Troy Brynelson, who noted that the number of manufacturing jobs in Clark County had climbed to 13,400 by last November, nearly reaching the pre-recession total of 13,700 in 2008. This is significant for the local economy, with manufacturing jobs paying an average of $55,591 compared with the countywide average of $47,420 for all jobs.
For decades, manufacturing has been a harbinger of the state of the national economy. It once was possible for somebody without a college education to land a job that would be there for the entirety of their working life, providing secure employment along with a comfortable retirement. For a variety of reasons, such jobs now are scarce. Global competition has left few private companies offering pensions, and millions of jobs have fled to countries where manufacturers benefit from cheap labor and lax regulations. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the United States lost 2.4 million manufacturing jobs to China alone from 2001 to 2013.