Buy American Campaign

Tag: Manufacturing

  • Stop Telling Young People to Learn a Trade—Show Them a Future

    Stop Telling Young People to Learn a Trade—Show Them a Future

    Young American manufacturing apprentice learning CNC machining from an experienced mentor

    Whenever the manufacturing workforce shortage comes up, someone offers the same solution: young people should learn a trade. The advice is usually delivered as though millions of teenagers simply forgot that factories exist. But if America wants more manufacturing careers for young people, it must do more than lecture them. It must show them a future worth choosing.

    Young Americans did not eliminate high-school shop programs, replace apprenticeships with online applications demanding three years of experience, or allow entry-level wages to fall behind local housing costs. Adults, institutions and employers built that system. Blaming the generation asked to navigate it is convenient, but it does not produce a single machinist.

    The Jobs Are Real, but the Path Is Hard to See

    The need is not imaginary. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects about 30,400 openings for machinists and tool-and-die makers every year through 2035, largely as experienced workers retire or change occupations. Median 2025 pay was $58,750 for machinists and $64,050 for tool-and-die makers.

    Those occupations make the precision parts, molds and tools behind nearly everything else America hopes to manufacture. Yet ask a typical high-school student how to become a tool-and-die maker, and the answer is far less obvious than the path to a four-year college.

    We Removed the First Rung of the Ladder

    A career becomes believable when a young person can see where it begins. That used to mean a shop class, a summer job, a plant tour, a neighbor who worked at the factory or an employer willing to train a beginner. In too many communities, those points of contact disappeared.

    Then employers began describing a “skills gap” while advertising supposedly entry-level positions that required experience newcomers had no way to acquire. You cannot demand finished workers from a training system nobody is willing to fund.

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    Manufacturing Careers for Young People Need Proof

    A poster saying “great careers are waiting” is not proof. A paid apprentice standing beside a skilled mentor is proof. A wage schedule showing how competency leads to higher pay is proof. So is a former operator who became a programmer, supervisor or production engineer.

    The National Institute of Standards and Technology describes manufacturing apprenticeships as paid on-the-job learning combined with technical instruction. Its Manufacturing Extension Partnership reports that 91 percent of apprentices remain with the employer that trained them. That is not charity; it is a practical way to build and retain talent.

    Modern Manufacturing Is Not the Career Adults Remember

    Many parents still picture manufacturing as repetitive, dirty work inside a fading plant. Some jobs do remain physically demanding, and employers should be honest about that. But modern machinists also read digital models, program CNC equipment, use computerized measuring systems and work with tolerances smaller than a human hair.

    Automation does not eliminate the need for skill; it changes the skill. Somebody must install the equipment, understand the process, diagnose failures, improve production and decide whether the finished part is right. These careers combine judgment, mathematics, technology and physical results in a way many young people would find deeply satisfying—if they ever saw the work.

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    Employers Must Make the Offer Worth Believing

    Respect cannot exist only in recruiting slogans. A manufacturer asking a nineteen-year-old to commit to a difficult craft should offer predictable advancement, useful training, competent supervision and wages that make adult life possible. Loyalty is earned in both directions.

    Companies also need to open their doors. Invite students and parents into clean, operating facilities. Let apprentices explain their work without a public-relations script. Publish the starting wage, the training sequence and what a capable worker can earn after three or five years. Specificity makes a career real.

    Schools Should Restore More Than a Shop Class

    Putting a lathe in a classroom is useful, but the larger goal is to reconnect education with local production. Schools, community colleges and manufacturers should share equipment, instructors and work-based learning opportunities. Students should be able to earn credit, industry credentials and a paycheck along the same path.

    College should remain available to anyone who wants it. But treating every alternative as a consolation prize has harmed students and the country. A young adult who can make a precision aerospace component is not someone who “failed to go to college.” That person possesses a valuable capability America cannot purchase from a motivational speech.

    Stop Scolding and Start Building

    Young people are constantly told to make practical choices. They are watching costs, wages, working conditions and whether an employer appears willing to invest in them. That is practical.

    If America wants the next generation to build aircraft, medical devices, machine tools and energy systems, the invitation must include a visible starting point and a credible destination. Restore the ladder. Pay people while they learn. Show them the technology, the mentors and the lives these careers can support.

    Then we can stop telling young people to learn a trade. They will be able to see the future for themselves.

    Whenever possible, choose Made in USA.

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  • The Statistics Game

    The Statistics Game

    american jobsWe’ve already touched on the idea that having more focused education in technical vocations and tailored degrees for manufacturing are the ways to save American jobs in the American manufacturing industry. Per the many employers of US manufacturing industries who say that finding American workers who are qualified for the positions is next to impossible, it’s hard to figure out why people are not going into the manufacturing industry at the same rate of their predecessors. Part of the reason for this wide gap between the need in manufacturing and the steady supply of qualified graduates is the effective marketing campaign that has been pushing vocational studies and bachelor degrees that lead to manufacturing professions into a less desirable category for degree-seeking individuals.

    Statistics to support the supposition that manufacturing professional degrees are needed are relatively hard to find since higher education, a multi-billion dollar industry in and off itself, has every incentive not to conduct or encourage any sort of polling process to find out how higher education stacks up to most vocational fields. They do, however, have many interesting infographics and graphs on how people with the broad term “bachelor’s degree” stacked up against people with “some college or associate degree.” Again, both of these terms are incredibly broad and would include every major field of study against college dropouts, associates degrees without a focus, as well as, those who hold degrees which are tailored to the manufacturing industry. Common sense will tell you that most college graduates have a higher rate of success in finding American jobs than those who have a high school degree and have not finished any other program of study.

    This logical assumption is somewhat misleading however, since these terms does not separate out those who are underemployed, employed in a field which was not their major field of study, for example you now need a bachelor’s degree to become management in most major retailers, and those who attained degrees which have no correlation between the job field industry and academic study, degrees such as philosophy, Latin studies, history, etc. Furthermore, since these statistics are essentially tailor-made to make bachelors degrees, regardless of field of study, more appealing to the masses due to lower unemployment rates, it’s no wonder that when a recession hits people flock to their local universities to seek degrees.

    In March, 2017, according to a Gallup poll, the underemployment rate for bachelor’s degree holding individuals was roughly 6.5%. This did not take into account the offset of the term “underemployed” due to the nearly astronomical amount of student debt incurred by bachelor’s degree holding individuals.

    Likewise, those holding associate’s degrees in vocational fields, technical fields, and other qualifying certificates for manufacturing employment were not separated out from the statistic concerning those in that degree range, making the number for that category at a 9.6%. Universities and colleges love using these types of statistical analysis to further their agenda: to increase enrollment rates in US manufacturing industries.

    [bctt tweet=”Ever wonder why statistics seem too good to be true? – American jobs” ]

    They put their comparisons onto billboards, in paid articles perpetuated in the media both online and on television, in large marketing campaigns that produce commercials, paid paper advertisements, school visits to high schools, and literature mailed directly to individual homes. All of these campaigns have the same message: enroll in our university or college and you will be successful in life.

     

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    To be frank, that is simply untrue.

    A bachelor’s degree in philosophy stacked up against a manufacturing certificate will show a higher payout and a lower debt for the certificate holder 99% of the time. A campaign for the re-education and rebranding of the US manufacturing industries is desperately needed if we are to encourage our young people into the manufacturing workforce. The question is always, who is going to pay for it?

    Until that complicated question finds a suitable answer, the first place starts at the most local level imaginable: with those young people in your life who are preparing to take the next step into adulthood. Educating them will at least start a conversation on the benefits of American manufacturing. If enough people have the conversation on a grassroots basis, it may lead to some interesting changes in the world of higher education where at least we can get some real answers when it comes to statistics regarding manufacturing employment.

  • What’s Up With “Made In America?”

    What’s Up With “Made In America?”

    Many political debates have revolved around whether products sold in the United States should be manufactured in the United States and whether or not imported products from other countries harm the US economy. Both history and current economic models show that in-country manufacturing creates jobs, boosts local economies, and enhances the lives of millions of Americans. So, what’s the debate really about?

    In recent years, the United States trade arrangements and tax laws have come under scrutiny as the proposed alteration of many of the tax laws and trade arrangements could result in a shift from the way the current domestic production and imported production is carried out.

    Lobbying efforts and consumer interest has been the driving force behind this shift toward positive association with American manufacturing. Businesses who host the majority of their manufacturing processes overseas have in turn panicked over the implications of increased manufacturing costs since it is almost impossible to pay the same rate to both skilled and unskilled US workers.  Protecting their interests becomes largely about convincing the politicians to push through laws that serve those interests.

    One of those proposed changes has to do with informing consumers of their products origins. Specifically, lobbying efforts are proposing that companies will no longer have to place country of origin on their merchandise, leaving the consumer to guess whether they’re assisting local economies or ones abroad.

    This is largely thought to be a failing measure by most due to the FTC’s (Federal Trade Commission) stance on the labeling of goods sold in the USA, AKA all goods have to display country of origin. However, this check is far from foolproof.

    The Federal Trade Commission’s policy is based more on the origin of the product content than on the final location of the manufacturers of the product, meaning “made in America” can actually mean “made in Taiwan” so long as the materials which the goods are manufactured with originate in the USA.

    This is something that directly contradicts what most American consumers have come to associate with the “made in America” product advertisement. Even though the policy itself has undergone periods of relative dormancy, the policy is now, and has been for several years, the subject of active and continued reinforcement efforts of the Federal Trade Commission.

    The Federal Trade Commission’s policy on defining the “made in America” label for products and goods sold within the United States falls within the Federal Trade Commission’s broad jurisdiction responsible for regulating deceptive advertising. The regulation of deceptive advertising applies to claims in advertising, labeling, and other claims regarding promotional materials. This extends to digital and other electronic formats.

    [bctt tweet=”What’s Up With “Made In America?”” ]

    Once the “made in America” claim is an objective claim, the Federal Trade Commission requires that the claim be supported and must be substantiated through truthful findings and evidence. The Federal Trade Commission’s policy on defining the “made in America” label encompasses two types of origin claims for products and goods sold within the United States. Those two types are qualified and unqualified origin claims.

    The Federal Trade Commission’s requirements for qualified origin claims for products and goods sold within the United States allow for substantial flexibility. This is beneficial for companies because it helps with marketing and branding of their product. If it is mildly deceptive, it’s thought to be well worth the potential risk since polls show that majority of people would prefer to buy Made in America products. For example, the manufacturer may state that the product or good is made in the United States with imported parts.

    This policy also allows the manufacturer the freedom to specify the country of origins if they choose to do so or not disclose it if they feel it would hinder their efforts to sell and make a profit off of the product they are distributing. Meaning, so long as the product’s origins is disclosed to the FTC, they may or may not, at their discretion, disclose that information to their consumers.

    Confused yet? The policy is extremely vague and parts have been tacked on over time to try and accommodate various problems that have come up in an effort to clarify. Unfortunately, this has made the policies ever more murky over time.

    “The question becomes: how do consumers encourage companies to move or keep manufacturing processes in America?”

    Also, the Federal Trade Commission’s policy for qualified origin claims on goods and products within the United States doesn’t require the manufacturer to disclose the source country for specific parts or the percentage of foreign parts so long as the United States content or processing is significant.

    This is good news for manufacturing plants that may be based in the United States but have to outsource certain materials from other countries due to the limitations within the United States for such materials. This is one instance where the FTC’s policies aid rather than hinder the advancement of American manufacturers.

    Unqualified origin claims for goods or products sold within the United States are a lot more restrictive. The Federal Trade Commission views an unqualified claim of origin as all, or virtually all, of the good or product has been made in the United States.

    These products have no more than a negligible amount of foreign content. The restrictions go even further by stating that the manufacturer must meet three criteria before claiming “made in America” for their product: The last significant manufacturing process has been done in the United States, the product must have a high proportion of United States content in comparison to foreign content, and the product or good must not have foreign components that consumers would reasonably view as significant to the final product.

    This is where some manufacturers run into problems and where many Americans view products that have been labeled as made in a foreign country as having major sources of off-shore manufacturing involved in their process. This simply isn’t true for some manufacturers and it becomes increasingly difficult to really figure out which are truly American manufactured products and which are not.

    A common misconception is Americans tend to view items labeled as “made in America” as being good for the economy and supporting local manufacturing jobs when this label can be very misleading. Larger corporations tend to be able to find ways around the FTC’s labeling system that smaller manufacturers simply do not have the resources to subvert.

    The question becomes: how do consumers encourage companies to move or keep manufacturing processes in America?

    It is important to discuss the distinction between “made in America” and the regulations on American manufacturing companies. Just because there are different laws or regulations passed to limit manufacturing efforts abroad, doesn’t necessarily mean that people will see an increase in the “made in America” origin label. There is a lot more involved for a manufacturer to label their product or good as “made in America”.

    In an ideal world, it would be nice to see 100% of all products and goods sold in the United States appropriately labeled as “made in the USA”. Many of today’s goods that are labeled as “made in America”, however, are partially made in the USA and partially made overseas.

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    Defining the acceptable percentage for what is allowed to be foreign content and what needs to be genuinely made in the United States is where it becomes difficult to narrow down. Obviously, 0% is unacceptable, but what about something that is 40%? That percentage might be below 50% but suppose the company uses all the resources available to manufacture the product or good within the United States.

    They are still employing Americans through as much of the process as is possible and that might be the best they can do right now on some products. That doesn’t mean that their efforts should go unnoticed. Hopefully, their attempts will be supported and encouraged and lead to a future where that percentage is more closer to the ideal 100%.

    There is no short answer for how to encourage “Made in America” to 100% overall saturation in the American market. A few things will help though: clearer, easier to follow policies in government, tax breaks that encourage manufacturing to stay within in the US, and educating the general public in how to select American manufacturers from the pool of less-reputable companies masquerading as Made-in-the-USA.