Manufacturing- Just how well is this segment doing in the current economy?

Both Wall Street and Washington like to cite manufacturing statistics whenever possible as a positive affirmation of an improved economy in what has been perceived overall as a tepid recovery at best.

The manufacturing figures most often thrown around are the increased number of jobs created over the last few years.

It’s true; factories ARE humming along at their fastest pace in years. Since the spring of 2010, the U.S. has added 600,000 new manufacturing jobs. That’s great and all, until you consider the 1.9 million manufacturing jobs lost during the recession.

A recent article in Bloomberg BusinessWeek entitled The Manufacturing Renaissance Is Not as Awesome as We Thought puts a different spin on these numbers. As long as U.S. manufacturers continue to get more competitive with their foreign rivals, production will continue coming back and adding to the country’s gross domestic product.

But from a jobs standpoint, it’s obvious that all that new growth and output is being driven by investments in capital, not labor. So: robots. Just think about all the robotics that has been implemented in manufacturing since 2010 alone!

Unfortunately, robots don’t get factored into the jobs number. If they did, a lot of machines would have earned a lot of jobs in the past few years. It’s not so much that factories are doing more with fewer resources—they’re doing more with fewer people.

Key Corporate Services is one of the major manufacturing and engineering recruiters. And we have specialists in the manufacturing segment who follow closely the trends and know where the best jobs are. If you work in manufacturing and are thinking of a move, give us a call.  Our job openings are all for humans, not robots!

From The Key Corporate Services Blog Team