{"id":19072,"date":"2025-06-27T12:45:16","date_gmt":"2025-06-27T12:45:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/19072\/"},"modified":"2025-06-27T12:45:16","modified_gmt":"2025-06-27T12:45:16","slug":"how-to-make-manufacturing-jobs-great-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/19072\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Make Manufacturing Jobs Great Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

My 19-year-old nephew Evan Craig has always had a big personality. He\u2019s voluble and super-charming. So I always thought he\u2019d be successful in business. This summer, after completing his first year at ASU (#1 in innovation, he\u2019s fond of reminding me), he took a job with a fraternity brother selling pest control services door-to-door in a suburb of L.A. Then he took a break for a planned vacation with the whole family: a cruise of the Greek Islands on the Celebrity Infinity<\/a>. But in a vivid illustration of how you can take the boy out of pest control but you can\u2019t take pest control out of the boy, he made his way to the ship\u2019s bridge and tried to sell pest control services to the captain. It went something like this:<\/p>\n

Evan: Captain Christos, my name is Evan and I\u2019m with a local hybrid service called White Knight. I don\u2019t know if you speak regularly with other Captains of the Celebrity fleet, but I\u2019m already taking care of Captain Tasos of Celebrity Edge and Captain Theo on Celebrity Millennium.<\/p>\n

Captain Christos: What?<\/p>\n

Evan: So they\u2019ve been seeing a lot of ants in staterooms, mosquitoes by the pool deck, and spiders on the bridge. The first thing we\u2019re doing for them is knocking those guys down then leaving a product up there so they don\u2019t come back. Next thing I\u2019m doing is down here at the base. You see these cracks and crevices? Those are highways for the ants and earwigs to crawl into the wall voids and nest and breed. I\u2019m sealing those off with a 3×3 foot power spray.<\/p>\n

Captain Christos was impressed, although not enough to entrust his floating resort to Evan\u2019s \u201clocal hybrid service.\u201d But all is not lost. Evan\u2019s already convinced a host of Southern California homeowners to entrust him with their pest control needs and is on his way to making tens of thousands of dollars this summer. Which got me thinking: how is it that an charismatic 19-year-old can make this kind of money selling services when he\u2019d only make a fraction of that amount if he\u2019d taken a job actually making something?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to understand why the Trump Administration is prioritizing manufacturing. Thousands of small communities whose economies once revolved around plants have deteriorated to depression, drugs, and dollar stores. Occam\u2019s Razor suggests restoring the plants as the straightest line to making these towns great again. This is the logic behind President Trump\u2019s \u201cLiberation Day\u201d tariffs<\/a> on all imported goods, propelling dozens of countries into frantic negotiations and \u2013 eight weeks later \u2013 a federal court injunction blocking them for the time being. Undaunted, the President\u2019s principal trade adviser, Peter Navarro, continues to claim Trump\u2019s tariffs will \u201cfill up all of the half-empty factories.\u201d<\/p>\n

While these measures to revive manufacturing have gone well beyond prior Administrations (and perhaps beyond the pale), the impulse hasn\u2019t changed. As the Progressive Policy Institute\u2019s Will Marshall noted in The Hill<\/a>, \u201cour two oldest presidents\u2026 both [of whom]<\/p>\n

grew up in the \u201850s when the United States bestrode a war-ravaged world like an industrial colossus\u201d have been fixated on bringing back factory jobs.<\/p>\n

But as Matt Stewart, CEO of supply chain and procurement tech services provider RiseNow, pointed out in The Hill<\/a>, manufacturing isn\u2019t what it used to be. (Disclosure: RiseNow is an Achieve Partners portfolio company.) Automation has made manufacturing so efficient that it\u2019s shrunk as a percentage of GDP and workforce pretty much everywhere, even China<\/a> and India<\/a>; over the past decade China lost 20M manufacturing jobs<\/a>. In America, fewer than 1 in 25 workers can be found on a factory floor. Further stymying manufacturing\u2019s renaissance is that plant work isn\u2019t just dirty and physically demanding \u2013 albeit less than in prior generations \u2013 but also relatively low-paying with limited career prospects.<\/p>\n

Back in the \u201950s, the great thing about manufacturing jobs was that they paid relatively well without requiring education or training. Even high school dropouts could get a job on the line. Manufacturing was a welcoming, friction-free path to the middle class. But seven decades on, neither condition appears to be true.<\/p>\n

First, the manufacturing wage premium has disappeared. A recent Federal Reserve paper<\/a> found that over the past thirty years factory workers have experienced a relative wage decline and now earn less than comparable non-manufacturing workers. That\u2019s average wage, including those who\u2019ve been on the job for decades. An Indeed scan of entry-level wages for manufacturing positions like production worker or line worker shows $14-20 per hour (variations by region per cost of living) or the same range as frontline service jobs. In cautious government-ese, Fed researchers conclude that \u201cthe conventional wisdom that manufacturing jobs are \u2018good jobs\u2019 is less true than it used to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Second, fewer manufacturing positions are open to all. Many now involve managing advanced machines and automated systems. Manufacturing job descriptions increasingly demand degrees, certifications, and prior experience. As a result, The Economist<\/a> concludes that the most similar work to the open manufacturing jobs of the 1970s isn\u2019t found in factories, but rather security jobs like TSA agents and mall cops. To which I\u2019d add door-to-door pest control sales.<\/p>\n

These factors explain why the number of open, unfilled manufacturing jobs is approaching 500K<\/a> \u2013 a number likely to get worse before it gets better given the new Administration\u2019s equal fervor for workplace raids and deportations. And why a recent Progressive Policy Institute poll<\/a> found only 13% of parents picking manufacturing as the sector with the best career opportunities for their children vs. 44% selecting higher income communications\/digital economy roles. While most of America\u2019s manufacturing woes are a result of competition from China\u2019s low-wage, government-subsidized factories, part of the problem is a talent gap.<\/p>\n

\"Car<\/p>\n

Does anyone here want these jobs?<\/p>\n

getty<\/p>\n

A few years ago I was at one of countless think-tank-convened meetings on America\u2019s talent gap. Across the table, a tech executive convincingly argued that one insurmountable barrier to reshoring semiconductor and integrated circuit board fabrication is the inability to compete for advanced degree graduates in computer science or engineering with software and tech services companies, which regularly pay a multiple more. Whereas a hardware company might offer a new Ph.D $150K or $200K to start, a software company (with much higher gross margins) can win the day with a $500K package including performance pay and equity. While China and Taiwan have similar challenges \u2013 one industry observer recently told the South China Morning Post<\/a> that few engineering graduates want to devote themselves to semiconductors (\u201cstudents are quite realistic\u2026 the job is too hard and not that well paid\u201d) \u2013 relatively fewer software and tech services companies in those markets = less competition.<\/p>\n

But as Evan knows, in America services + software reign supreme. Which makes it difficult for chip manufacturing to compete. Or manufacturers of anything that can be shipped across borders. I searched Indeed for advanced manufacturing \u201cengineer\u201d jobs and found base salaries of $90-150K i.e., a proposition which similarly qualified candidates for tech services and software jobs would find less compelling than a pest control pitch.<\/p>\n

Protectionism is taking a sledgehammer to America\u2019s manufacturing problem. Indiscriminate or so-called reciprocal tariffs have the potential to resuscitate factories, but with inflation and knock-on effects that make the benefits for protected sectors and workers seem as tiny as Evan\u2019s ants and spiders.<\/p>\n

A more surgical approach is to begin with the talent gap. Do you know who\u2019s willing to work in a factory for $20 an hour? 20-something career launchers whose only alternative is similarly remunerative frontline service jobs with little to no career progression beyond the store. In contrast, manufacturers have a wider range of professional positions on site or nearby (e.g., finance, HR, QA).<\/p>\n

So instead of overturning the economic order to rebuild Factorytown, why not start by making the manufacturing sector into a career launching pad? Here how Evan might sell it:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. First, we\u2019re going to dramatically reduce the time and cost to land these hundreds of thousands of open jobs. We\u2019re giving financial incentives to manufacturers to eliminate job requirements beyond high school + maybe a faster + cheaper certification<\/a>.<\/li>\n
  2. Next we\u2019re funding earn-and-learn internship and youth apprenticeship programs \u2013 fueling the growth of intermediaries that do the work of setting up and running these programs<\/a> \u2013 where students begin plant work in high school and continue full-time after graduation.<\/li>\n
  3. Then we\u2019re helping companies build clear career pathways within manufacturing, to related services professions, and back to relevant postsecondary credentials with prior learning assessment and credit recognition. (OK, maybe Evan wouldn\u2019t say that last part.)<\/li>\n
  4. Finally, we\u2019re going to spray a bunch of chemicals everywhere. (Evan always says this.)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    If you buy this, you probably agree that $20\/hr plant jobs could be attractive options for 18-20-year-olds currently navigating between the Scylla and Charybdis of College or Chipotle<\/a> \u2013 or College + Pest Control or Chipotle. (But seriously, if you do buy this, send me your home address so I can forward the lead to Evan.)<\/p>\n

    Contrary to conventional wisdom, manufacturing jobs aren\u2019t good jobs. But they can be good entry-level jobs. America has a large labor pool more than willing to work for reasonable wages as long as the jobs are easy to get out of school and offer a secure pathway to something better. That labor pool is floundering like never before<\/a> and the level of investment required to tap it to bolster American manufacturing is a fraction of the cost of Trump\u2019s sledgehammer tariffs. By closing the talent gap we can address youth unemployment and underemployment while simultaneously providing a more competitive labor pool for American manufacturers.<\/p>\n

    If we can reduce hiring friction and establish career pathways out of entry-level manufacturing positions, hundreds of thousands of 18-20-year-olds will enter the sector, learn to show up on time ready to work, and gain valuable experience. And if manufacturing becomes a popular path for career launch, we could see:<\/p>\n