Quote from thriftybob:
I ran a business that had a dozen of them go under or get bought out from 2001 to 2003. That was about 1/3 of the clients. There isn't anything any amount of technology is going to do for you when your competitor from China is selling completed units in boxes, delivered, for less than what you had to pay for parts alone. Your choices end up at shutter the plants and buy from China, or watch your business wither away one customer at a time.
Maybe you need to visit the real world. They are still dropping like flies. Watch what happens to Delphi in the next couple years as GM's products cycle. There are just fewer left to drop these days, and those left standing aren't worth doing business with because there are all ready to go under. Watch how many do as the economy slips into recession.
You owe an apology for the attitude, BTW.
Obviously some factories are shuttered or offshored. Every industry is experiencing this. A lot of software is now being written in India. But the demand for computer science grads is expected to climb over 30% in the next few years. Huge numbers of jobs are created and destroyed in this country. It is the nature of our economy.
But your thesis is still incorrect. You cannot look at a few places and say "this is what is true for the entire manufacturing industry." Automation has been the primary destroyer of jobs.
Examples:
Due to productivity gains, China lost more jobs (15 million) in manufacturing than the US (2 million) from 1995-2002: http://www.conference-board.org/utilities/pressDetail.cfm?press_ID=2432
"in recent years, outsourcing has been blamed for the loss of jobs in which automation is the more likely culprit[3]. This argument is supported by the fact that in the U.S., the number of insourced jobs is increasing at a greater rate than those outsourced[4]. Further, the rate of decline in U.S. manufacturing employment is no greater than the worldwide average: 11 percent between 1995 and 2002[5]. In the same period, China, which has been frequently criticized for "stealing" American manufacturing jobs, lost 15 million manufacturing jobs of its own (about 15% of its total), compared with 2 million lost in the U.S.[6]. Millions of human telephone operators and answerers, throughout the world, have been replaced wholly (or almost wholly) by automated telephone switchboards and answering machines (not by Indian or Chinese workers). Thousands of medical researchers have been replaced in many medical tasks from 'primary' screeners in electrocardiography or radiography, to laboratory analyses of human genes, sera, cells, and tissues by automated systems." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automation
"After the most recent recession ended in 2001, manufacturing continued to lose jobs through this year. âJob growth is so slow in manufacturing because there are fewer recalls to manufacturers,â Hill said. âIn this recovery, many of the jobs that were lost will never come backâ because of advances in technology and automation. " http://www.managingautomation.com/m...acturing_Survival_Hinges_on_Innovation_163842"
Business Week estimates that 1% productivity improvement can eliminate up to 1.3 million jobs. With U.S. productivity growing at an annual rate of 3-5%, the reason for the jobs shortfall becomes clear. According to Forrester Research, of the 2.7 million jobs lost over the three years, only 300,000 have been from outsourcing. Dick Morley explains it with his usual colorful flair, âJobs are going down the silicon hole, not the outsourcing hole.â And the figures support this contention. Productivity resulting from industrial automationânot outsourcingâis the biggest culprit behind most manufacturing job losses. All industrialized countries are losing manufacturing jobs too â including China." http://www.automation.com/sitepages/pid1939.php"