Blame automation for loss of manufacturing jobs – LancasterOnline

Manufacturing jobs have been in decline since 2000. President Donald Trump claims the North American Free Trade Agreement and the entrance of China into the World Trade Organization have jointly sucked those jobs out of our country and deposited them in other countries.

A recent study by the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State University, however, indicates that he is probably wrong in indicting NAFTA and China for those job losses. The report found that 85 percent of those manufacturing job losses did not vanish because of either trade deficits or international trade imbalances but to machines that automated most of those jobs.

Manufacturing's adoption of advanced technologies has increased real output as well as productivity almost across the entire industrial spectrum. These advances have made many manufacturing workers redundant.

Happily, for their owners, these companies produce more with fewer employees.

Bringing manufacturing back from wherever it currently is will most probably lead to more automation and not more jobs. Technology improves at an increasingly fast pace.

In fact, Oxford University reported in 2013 that of 702 occupations,about 47 percent of total U.S. employment is (would be) at risk to computerization/automation by 2023.

Viewed from this perspective, tariffs on imports, or trade wars to force businesses to bring jobs back to the U.S., makes very little sense as those jobs most likely will be automated.

While it is tempting to blame trade deals for job losses, the real culprits are businesses that have machines doing twice the work with one-third the workers.

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Blame automation for loss of manufacturing jobs - LancasterOnline