"Making It in America"
January 17, 2012
Very interesting article on the status of unskilled and skilled labor in the U.S. manufacturing.
The article also has some interesting detail on the manufacturing of after-market car parts. I learned that part of a fuel injector "has to be machined to a tolerance of a quarter micron, or 10 millionths of an inch, about the size of a virus." I also learned that operators of some of the machines that manufacture those fuel injectors need to know calculus and computer programming. (Time reports that manufacturing "precision toolmaker" is one of the "nine jobs of the (near) future".)
And the article concludes far more sensibly than many such articles.
It’s hard to imagine what set of circumstances would reverse recent trends and bring large numbers of jobs for unskilled laborers back to the U.S. Our efforts might be more fruitfully focused on getting Maddie the education she needs for a better shot at a decent living in the years to come.