Manufacturing in the United States boasts a long history of innovation and success. Yet, over the last several decades, we’ve seen an increasing number of products produced overseas, as global competition heats up.
There are many reasons for the trends we’ve noticed in manufacturing. As technology advances, other countries have been able to catch up to the U.S. in terms of their ability to manufacture a wide variety of goods. In fact, some countries can do so more cheaply than U.S. manufacturers.
Lower labor costs are far from the only factor at play, though. Some countries have developed workers with specialized skills in producing particular products, such as the semiconductors that power so many of the things we use today, from computers and smartphones to automobiles and aircraft.
As U.S. manufacturers feel the heat of increasing global competition, it’s only natural that manufacturers and the political leaders that represent them have begun to call for solutions to bring more manufacturing back to U.S. soil. But what exactly needs to be done to re-industrialize America?
Some politicians aligned with the current administration believe that tariffs are the answer. They believe that increasing the cost of foreign goods will lead to increased demand for domestic goods that will, in turn, lead more manufacturers to produce goods domestically.
However, as most anyone who has taken a high school civics course can tell you, tariffs are paid by U.S. importers, not foreign countries. Thus, the impact of tariffs are often felt immediately and most forcefully by U.S. consumers who foot the bill when increased costs are passed along to them.
What, if any, effect tariffs have on the demand for domestic goods or the desire for manufacturers to produce more products domestically is murky, at best. So, what can be done to re-industrialize America? At least one U.S. representative has a bold idea.
In a recent article in The Herald News by Dan Medeiros, the author notes that Massachusetts representative Jake Auchincloss believes that manufacturers in his district, “companies with a talented workforce making high-end, specialized products,” “require globalized, predictable markets to sell to. Tariffs threaten that.”
In fact, Auchincloss says, “[t]he president wants to claim that his tariff is about re-industrializing this country. That’s not how you re-industrialize a country. You re-industrialize a country by investing in the workforce and investing in a business climate where people want to expand their businesses. You don’t do it by raising the cost of doing business.”
Here’s where his bold idea comes into play: Auchincloss believes “a better way to re-industrialize the United States would be to invest in trade schools — he said he’s writing federal legislation to build 1,000 new vocational schools nationwide to plant the seeds of a new generation of blue-collar workers.”
These new trade schools could produce a pipeline of highly skilled manufacturing workers that industry so desperately needs. Auchincloss recently visited Taco Comfort Solutions, an HVAC manufacturing company in his district. The company is thriving in the growing HVAC market and needs to hire “welders, mechanical engineers, packers and assemblers, fabricators, product designers and more.”
However, Taco Comfort Solutions and companies like it cannot wait for new trade schools to be built. They need workers now. Fortunately, there are already many educational institutions—from high schools to community colleges and universities—that teach the advanced technical skills that today’s manufacturers need.
Moreover, manufacturers can benefit from the expertise of the technical training experts at Amatrol. Amatrol has been the world leader in technical education for more than four decades now. The experts at Amatrol can provide needed guidance on everything from training and hands-on skill development to industry-standard certifications and apprenticeships.
The experts at Amatrol have been working alongside educational institutions and manufacturers for years to design training programs featuring eLearning curriculum and hands-on experience with trainers equipped with industrial components workers will encounter on the job. For more information about how Amatrol can help train students or workers, contact an expert at Amatrol today!
