U.S. Manufacturing Productivity Has Negative Affect on Employment

In an editorial for the Washington Independent, lawyer and author Charles R. Morris wrote that many “are attacking both of the likely presidential candidates…for their complacency in the face of American ‘deindustrialization.’” According to Morris, the “anger is fueled, in part, by the absurd expansion of ‘Wall Street’ over the past decade.” He explains that “the United States is the world leader in manufacturing output by a huge margin,” and that as “manufacturing productivity grows rapidly,…manufacturing employment invariably shrinks.”

Morris noted that the problem with this trend in the U.S. is that “the productivity drive has meant downsizing millions of workers, and treating most of them badly.” While “[i]nvestors, private equity companies, [and] CEOs…happily reap the profit and incomes from improved productivity,” laid off workers “reap mostly fear and insecurity.” For instance, “[t]he rapid ‘human-resources adjustments’ of market-responsive companies…entail near-absolute cutoffs of health insurance,” and provide little in the way of unemployment benefits and retraining opportunities for former workers.