Trade
Paranoia: What's an American Worker to Do?
Unskilled, labor intensive manufacturing industries are those which do not
require formal education of their workers. Such industries, like the apparel
industry, are leaving industrialized nations and becoming the domain of emerging
markets. Sixteen industrialized countries, including countries in Western
Europe, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, have lost unskilled manufacturing
jobs. Twelve of these countries have lost a greater percentage of unskilled
manufacturing jobs than the United States.
Skilled manufacturing,
which requires its workforce to have a higher level of training, is not leaving
the U.S. The United States has, however, lost skilled manufacturing jobs due
to increases in productivity thanks to technology. Between 1994 and the recession
of 2001, high tech manufacturing requiring skilled labor saw revenue growth
of 7.8 percent per year. As mechanization and new technology increase productivity,
fewer people are needed and employment has fallen in this sector worldwide.
Even China saw its skilled manufacturing sector decrease by twenty-four percent
between 1993 and 2002 because of productivity gains.
But the current focus on manufacturing is misleading. In fact, the U.S. economy
is mostly made up of businesses that do not manufacture, and people who do
not work on assembly lines. Indeed, most of us work in a service industry.
Service jobs include professions such as accounting, medicine, dentistry,
banking, marketing, sales, and consulting. These are fine jobs at which Americans
excel both at home and abroad. Service jobs also include nonprofessional positions,
such as dishwasher, maid, and taxi driver to name just a few. Many of these
low-skill service positions are a source of employment for non-English speaking
immigrants and Americans without high school or college educations. According
to the Coalition of Service Industries, services account for an enormous percentage
of the American economy-- 76%, or $7.3 trillion, of US private sector GDP
in 2003. US services industries employ more than 88 million Americans, accounting
for about 80% of US private sector jobs, or 87 million jobs, out of total
private sector employment of 108.6 million. Services are expected to create
an additional 19.2 million jobs, or 90% of all new jobs, by 2012. The liberalization
of services is essential to the continued success of the US services sector,
to the facilitation of trade in goods, and to the growth of the US economy
generally.
As far as international
trade is concerned, the U.S. exported services worth $305 billion in 2003.
Sales of services to foreigners by U.S.-owned foreign affiliates totaled $432
billion in 2001. It is thanks to the sales of services by U.S. owned foreign
affiliates that U.S. services firms are able to compete globally and are able
to create supporting jobs at home.
There are some who will tell you service jobs are not as important as manufacturing
jobs. They will tell you that service jobs don't pay well, are demeaning,
and are synonymous with "flipping hamburgers." We think that's unfair.
Airline pilots, doctors, lawyers, accountants, salespeople, truckers, engineers,
nurses, dentists and others in the service industry should be offended when
they hear some politician talking about service jobs as being low paying and
demeaning (as if being a politician wasn't a service job). When asked what
they want to be when they grow up, most children will respond "police
officer," "nurse," or "fireman." When was the last
time you heard a child say "I want to be a hotel maid when I grow up?"
Service jobs are sought after because they can be highly rewarding, and they
often require advanced education. There is nothing demeaning about that.
And that is really the point.
The fact is eighty percent of all jobs in the fastest growing American industries require training beyond high school. The low-skill, low-wage manufacturing jobs that have migrated from the United States to places in Asia generally do not require advanced schooling. This should tell us that the key to helping American laborers adapt to changing economic conditions is education. Rather than slapping tariffs on imports or passing labor laws that limit outsourcing, our legislators should be educating their constituents on how to find resources to re-tool themselves for the 21st Century. We should be offering hope and the dream of advancement to low-skill workers, not trying to retain these jobs in America at any cost. In an economy as dynamic as ours, flexibility is key.
Demanding that the federal government "fix" the plight of American manufacturing workers is not realistic. More important, it doesn't make long-term sense to protect low-skill manufacturing jobs. We may have provided work for people willing to sit behind sewing machines since the industrial revolution, but this doesn't mean we have an obligation to apparel workers to continue providing these jobs forever. Indeed, most native-born Americans are no longer willing to work in places like apparel factories and prefer to leave these least desirable manufacturing jobs to recent immigrants.
Instead of trying to save jobs that may not hold much for workers in the future, CWT encourages Members of Congress and their staff to persuade their constituents to research new employment and training opportunities and sources of funding to pay for it. In addition, CWT urges Congress to increase funding for Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA), the Workforce Investment Act Dislocated Worker Program (WIA), Employment Service state grants, and reemployment service state grants. Sources of state and federal funding include:
Other internet sites that may be of interest to workers include:
And of course, there's always your local community college!