Is Manufacturing in the USA Increasing or Decreasing???

[jinxu]

I've been reading a couple of recent articles lately about the rise in manufacturing like these:

U.S. Factories Buck Decline
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704029704576088412618821224.html
After years of decline, manufacturing jobs are increasing across Midwest - though pay isn't great
http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/business/stories/2011/05/21/knocking-off-rust.html?sid=101

But I'm confused when taking a closer look at the trends in the past 30 years shown below. I'm confused on what happened after around the year 2000. Before then number of manufacturing jobs has been somewhat steady and then it just "crashed" suddenly afterward. What could have been the real caused of it besides increased productivity? Wasn't it due to outsourcing and NAFTA?

Source: http://seekingalpha.com/article/133188-u-s-manufacturing-more-output-with-fewer-workers

 

[jprad]

Quote from jinxu:

But I'm confused when taking a closer look at the trends in the past 30 years shown below. I'm confused on what happened after around the year 2000. Before then number of manufacturing jobs has been somewhat steady and then it just "crashed" suddenly afterward. What could have been the real caused of it besides increased productivity? Wasn't it due to outsourcing and NAFTA?

That chart would make a lot more sense if output value was normalized to inflation.

 

[adadadog]

In terms of dollar value, maybe; in terms of real "stuff", not. If you can print your problems away and print to get what you need, it will be very hard to not print and do something else until you can no longer print because nobody is accepting what you print -- then it comes crash and burn, start all over.