No good news on the job front -- so now what?
September 10, 2007

1. Everyone sees the problem: Another cut in manufacturing jobs last month, combined with a smaller-than-expected gain in service sector jobs, meant there were 4,000 fewer U.S. jobs in August than in July. You can push a good bit of this off on a deepening housing crisis. Where there’s less housing growth, there are fewer manufactured items going into those homes. It doesn’t make the job situation better, and the specter of recession now looms. War and recession – not often you see the two of them together…

2. Everyone has a story to tell: Here’s a good piece from the Washington Post that sums up the problem, both in economic and manufacturing terms. It also gets at how various regions are attacking the problem. We’ve cover that in a minute, but remember two crucial factors – this has happened before, and there’s always a solution if you stop wringing your hands long enough over the problem.

3. Every region’s problem is a crisis: Detroit has been hit hardest by the manufacturing job losses, and so have the companies that supply Detroit the parts and services. We’ve discussed before that automobile job growth IS happening – it’s just not happening in Detroit right now.

4.  What is the hidden problem in manufacturing? Our idiot friend Lou Dobbs thinks the solution to a problem that doesn’t exist is closing the borders first and asking questions later. A study from the Kaufman Foundation gets to the heart of what made American great in the first place, and it’s got nothing to do with border patrols and big fences. It’s about innovation and where to find it and how to embrace it.

5. So what do we do? We pinned down a few manufacturing experts at our Manufacturing Summit in April in Chicago, and found some fundamental things everyone can do in their own plants and at their own pace. I’ve also blogged about this in the past. Another truism: This problem won’t get solved in Washington. It’s going to get fixed one plant at a time, one region at a time, one innovative product at a time.

Posted by Wolseley on September 10, 2007 | Comments (2)