Excerpts from The Atlantic Magazine, January/February, 2012, by Adam Davidson, "Making it in America".
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| Maddie in the "clean room" smart but unskilled |
"....Factories have replaced millions of workers with machines. Even if you
know the rough outline of this story, looking at the Bureau of Labor
Statistics data is still shocking. A historical chart of U.S.
manufacturing employment shows steady growth from the end of the
Depression until the early 1980s, when the number of jobs drops a
little. Then things stay largely flat until about 1999. After that, the
numbers simply collapse. In the 10 years ending in 2009, factories shed
workers so fast that they erased almost all the gains of the previous 70
years; roughly one out of every three manufacturing jobs—about 6
million in total—disappeared. About as many people work in manufacturing
now as did at the end of the Depression, even though the American
population is more than twice as large today...."
"...Across America, many factory floors look radically different than they
did 20 years ago: far fewer people, far more high-tech machines, and
entirely different demands on the workers who remain. The
still-unfolding story of manufacturing’s transformation is, in many
respects, that of our economic age. It’s a story with much good news for
the nation as a whole. But it’s also one that is decidedly less
inclusive than the story of the 20th century, with a less certain role
for people like Maddie Parlier, who struggle or are unlucky early in
life.".... Read the full article.
Posted by Kathy Meeh
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