Manufacturing job definition increasing blurred

Manufacturing job definition increasing blurred

Despite China’s rapid rise, America remains a formidable production power. Its manufacturing output in dollar terms is now about the same as China’s, but it achieves this with only 10% of the workforce deployed by China, says Susan Hockfield, president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and co-chair of President Barack Obama’s Advanced Manufacturing Partnership, an initiative recently set up with business and universities to create jobs and boost competitiveness.
A lot of the jobs that remain on the factory floor will require a high level of skill, says Mr Smith, Rolls-Royce’s manufacturing boss. “If manufacturing matters, then we need to make sure the necessary building blocks are there in the education system.” His concern extends to the firm’s suppliers, because companies in many countries have cut down on training in the economic downturn.
The “Hammering Man” catches a nostalgia for the kind of manufacturing employment which in the developed world barely exists any more. Factory floors today often seem deserted, whereas the office blocks nearby are full of designers, IT specialists, accountants, logistics experts, marketing staff, customer-relations managers, cooks and cleaners, all of whom in various ways contribute to the factory. And outside the gates many more people are involved in different occupations that help to supply it. The definition of a manufacturing job is becoming increasingly blurred.
Companies are also optimistic about a manufacturing revival. “We are standing in front of a potential revolution in manufacturing,” says Michael Idelchik, head of advanced technologies at GE Global Research, the R&D arm of one of the world’s biggest manufacturers. The ideas that will make this happen can come from anywhere, which is why his laboratory, based in bucolic Niskayuna in upstate New York, also has research centres in Bangalore, Munich, Rio de Janeiro and Shanghai. As for the jobs likely to be created, Mr Idelchik thinks people have a myopic view of manufacturing employment: “If you look at everyone who contributes, it is a very large occupation.”
Yet America’s productivity strides raise questions about how many manufacturing jobs, particularly of the white-collar variety, will be created. And some of the manufacturing breakthroughs now in the pipeline will bring down the number of people needed even further. “It is true that if you look at the array of manufacturing technologies that are coming out of MIT, many of them are jobs-free, or jobs-light,” says Ms Hockfield. “But that is no reason not to want to do that type of manufacturing in America, because feeding into jobs-light processes is a huge supply chain in which there are lots of jobs and large economic benefits.”