Harry E. Figgie Jr.

Wells Fargo published a report today on U.S. manufacturing. The report notes that while employment in the sector is down, technological and productivity improvements have led to output growth. This story of The Business Journal contains a link to the full report. – The Editors

In an effort to train workers for current and future manufacturing jobs, Minnesota has developed a pilot program called “Right Skills Now.” The program’s goal is to make “current, relevant, focused, and intensive training to be the standard — not the exception — at our local schools and colleges.” For more, see this story in [...]

The Breakthrough Institute and The Third Way published a report today, “Manufacturing Growth: Advanced Manufacturing and the Future of the American Economy.” Here is the intro graph of the report: Stagnant and out-dated policy debates in Washington are the reason that advanced, high-tech products are mostly manufactured outside of the United States, according to a [...]

Does America Need Manufacturing? That is the provocative question being posed by the mainstream media, most recently by Jon Gertner in the New York Times.(1) Of course America needs manufacturing. In fact, America continues to rely on manufacturing more than most people know, and government policies should be supporting, not inhibiting its growth. One reason [...]

Chris Carbone, writing at the Manufacturing Innovation blog, argues that the positive reviews of the latest manufacturing report are overblown. He writes, The release of Friday’s Employment Situation was surprisingly “good.” I use the term “good” loosely–114,000 jobs added over the month is not even enough to simply keep up with population growth, let alone [...]

In an indication that manufacturing may become a more salient issue during the 2012 election cycle, Former Indiana House Speaker and Gubernatorial Candidate John Gregg said he would attempt to lure wind-turbine manufacturers to the state as part of his strategy to revitalize the state’s crumbling manufacturing base. From the Bloomberg article: We’ve got to [...]

The New America Foundation is running a series of features on how to create “decent jobs” in America. In a new feature called Import Money – Export Goods, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation President Robert Atkinson discusses the critical role of manufacturing in creating middle-class jobs. While we need to “import” money, we also need [...]

(Photo Credit: SFView’s Photostream) Forbes’ Tim Worstall reminds us that while American manufacturing employment is down, overall manufacturing production is not. In fact, the United States produces more manufacturing goods than any other country in the world – more than Germany, Italy, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, Brazil, and Canada combined. The post can be [...]

This chart from Daily Markets demonstrates how improvements in manufacturing productivity have improved the lives of Americans. The chart above displays the share of Personal Consumption Expenditures represented by three categories of manufactured consumer goods that are most important to U.S. households: a) food and beverages consumed at home, b) clothing and footwear, and c) [...]

(Photo Credit: Ohio Progressive’s Photo Stream) Yesterday, Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) introduced the Strengthening Manufacturing and Rebuilding Transit (SMART) Act focuses on made-in-the-USA public transportation infrastructure. Here is a snippet of Senator Brown’s comment: “With gas prices close to $4.00 a gallon in many parts of Ohio and across the country, reinvesting in transit is [...]