All we want for Christmas is our old jobs back

Several weeks ago a coworker sent me a link to a Politico article about her hometown of Johnstown, PA that was a follow-up to interviews the author conducted there during the election. The piece, which focused on support for President Trump then and now, caused quite a stir with its depiction of a few particularly ugly members of the community.

This generated a wave of rebuke (including this cogent response from local leaders), but aside from the remarks the writer was able to get on the record, what struck me about the story was something less inflammatory. I see it lurking behind the resentment of many who decry the loss of manufacturing jobs in the US: entitlement (or rather a sense of entitlement, as I'm often pointing out).

First, let's be clear about one thing. While outsourcing and shifting production to low-cost countries has removed millions of jobs from the US economy, the vast majority of the exodus of manufacturing positions is attributable not to cheap labor in China (which ironically is no longer a low-cost country). It is due to the rise of automation.

This is a well-documented trend that has been at work in our economy since the postwar manufacturing boom of the 1950s and 60s. It's just that now, it's more visible.

Automation is also getting cheaper and easier for more (i.e., smaller) companies to implement. For example, about ten years ago I was touring one of my company's robotics plants and learned about a small but growing segment of the business that involved buying used robots, refurbishing them and selling them. The businesses buying them in many cases hadn't even considered robots due to the cost of new equipment. The refurbed units were even going to places like small mom-and-pop automotive shops.

Another point to keep in mind is that there are manufacturing jobs to be had in America--ask any manufacturer. They just require a different skill set or higher level of training than the jobs of the past. And there's the rub.

We humans are notorious for our aversion to change. The refusal of some in our society to accept it in the context of employment is, in my view, one of the most troubling drags not only on our economy but on the cohesiveness of society itself. Nothing breeds discontent like believing you've been left behind, and it's only human to look for someone to blame. But of course there is no one to blame for the loss of manufacturing jobs, only things (e.g., advancing technology, globalization).

Behind every anti-NAFTA screed or accusing finger pointed at Mexico is a belief that those jobs were "ours." As such, the fact that the work is now being done somewhere else (or done here, more efficiently) means that those jobs were "taken" from us by corporations, or worse, "stolen" by nefarious foreign regimes. The losers, then, feel they are owed... something.

I won't delve into the politics of all this other than to simply note that protectionism never helped anybody. Enacting anti-trade policy to save "our" jobs is a well-worn populist tool. It makes for great theater, but it isn't going to create millions of jobs in today's economy, and it certainly isn't going to bring back the jobs we've lost. Those, dear reader, are gone forever and the sooner we get our collective head around that the better.

Which brings me to the reason I started this whole spiel in the first place. Working for a company that is both an automation supplier and a major manufacturer, I've come to the conclusion that while the jobs might be different, there is still plenty of work to be done in the manufacturing sector. I empathize with workers who have been displaced by automation; they've lost something of value, more than just the income from the job itself, but we'll never find a remedy to their situation in denying facts.

"No one will rescue us but us," wrote the community leaders of Johnstown, and I think this applies more broadly. It should be a mantra for every disaffected manufacturing worker who expects someone else (corporations? the government?) to provide them with a job they deem to be "good."

No one owes you a job any more than someone owes you an education, but I do believe that the state has an interest in seeing that its citizens have more of both. I believe we should be investing far more (public and private funds) than we currently do in worker training and technical education. We can have a debate as to what government's role should be vis-a-vis absorbing economic shocks to its workforce--my point is simply that high levels of automation and employment are not mutually exclusive (see Germany, Japan, South Korea).

We have the means to give people a way to re-enter the economy so that they can begin to share in our national prosperity, and we should do so. But the means is not the end.

Ultimately, the disaffected worker must come to grips with the fact that he or she might have to go back to school, change industries or move to where jobs are more plentiful. None of these things is particularly appealing, especially for middle-aged folks with kids and lots of obligations, but it is the reality we are living in.

Views expressed here are my own.