Between 2001 and 2009, the United states lost 6 million manufacturing jobs, however, since then, there has been a slow but growing economic recovery proving that American manufacturing is not a thing of the past. Today, U.S. factories produce about 75 percent of what the contry consumes, and the future growth of American manufacturing depends on "advanced manufacturing."
There are plently of advanced manufacturing opportunities in the United States (automation, computation, software, biological sciences, nanotechnology, etc), but the future of it requires our own government and industry leaders to recognize them and capitalize them. It is a fact that total manufacturing jobs have declined in recent years, but high-skilled manufacturing employment opportunities have increased 40 percent since 1980.
Deloitte Consulting performed a survey of American manufacturers in October 2011. Respondents of the survey said that that 5 percent of their jobs remained unfilled simply because they could not find workers with the right skills for the positions. They also said that this employee deficiency was having a negative impact on their ability to expand operations or improve company productivity.
So how can we end Aamerica's manufacturing skills deficiency problem? For starters we need to improve vocational training in order to motivate and educate future generations into getting involved in manufacturing. We also need to develop a network among educational institutions, the government and private corporations. This network will create a constant flow of job opportunities. Laslty, we need to resolve intellectual property protection issues because this is what will guarantee that American manufacturing jobs won't be outsourced to be done at a cheaper price abroad.
Learn more about what can be done to solve America's manufacturing skills deficiency by reading the article "U.S. Manufacturing's Brave New World" by The American.
