Memorandum On America First
To: Donald Trump, President of the United States
From: Colman Lydon, Secretary of State
Date: March 4, 2018
RE: America First
Context:
America
has been since as a country that was built on the manufacturing industry. Its
true that in a lot if it’s formative years as a country, manufacturing was the job
that many American had an could also depend on. However, in recent years, not
many Americans have jobs in manufacturing plans, and there a not many manufacturing
plants in the United States. There have been two different rationales for why
this is happening. The first is that the United States has outsourced many of
its manufacturing plants to outside countries. This would look like the popular
thought. While people who support this idea are not wrong, there is a much
bigger problem to American jobs, and that is automation of many workplaces.
Evidence:
It is
true that outsourcing factory jobs has cost some jobs in America. According to
a study done by the Ball State University’s Center for Business and Economic
Research, outsourcing is behind 13% of all manufacturing job loss in the United
States. Another study, from MIT found that between 1999 to 2011, imports from
China cost the United States 2.4 millions jobs. While this is not beneficial,
there is a much larger reason behind such a drop in the U.S. The same study
points out that 88% of all manufacturing job loss in the U.S is because of automation
in the workplace. What this means is the in the United States, more is being
made with fewer people. A reason for the change from person to robot is that it
is far cheaper to hire a robot to work in a factory than it is to employ a person.
A robot does not call in sick, get hurt, need breaks or vacation days, and can
work for a lot longer and in more stressful conditions than a person can.
According to the Boston Consultant group, a person working in a factory makes
around $25 an hour. A robot that works the same job only has an $8 operating
cost.
Implementation:
While trading is a source of job loss in the United
States, it would not help to make this the primary focus of trying to bring manufacturing
jobs back into the United States. Focusing more on having stricter regulations
as to how much a manufacturing plant can have automated versus how much people
they need to have employed would work better in terms of bringing back
manufacturing jobs. Also incentives for companies to employ more people would
help. It would help to close the gap that is only set to widen as the years go on
between the cost of hiring people and the cost of using machines. There needs
to be more focus on this as a reason that America is losing out on jobs. While
trading and outsourcing to other countries is a part of it, it is very small in
comparison to jobs that have been lost to a switch over to automation.
I agree that the United States needs to focus on bringing jobs back to the United States, the larger issue is the use of technology in the workplace taking jobs away from people. Is it fair to keep a manufacturer from becoming more efficient with the use of automation? I agree that it's a problem, but with the way technology is evolving this could be a very difficult problem to reverse.
ReplyDeleteLike Nora mentioned, the larger issue here is technology. We have seen many companies going towards automation instead of human workers. For many companies it is much better than having to spend extra money in the United States for jobs that are pretty menial. Business always look for ways to cut costs and having to pay a worker a minimum wage of 7.25 compared to a dollar in other countries is alot more appealing. Not to mention getting rid of having to pay anyone and spending more money in the beginning by going automated but in the long run saving even more money. It is a diffiult issue to bring up.
ReplyDeleteI think you are onto something about the automation of jobs. It is the center a difficult "chicken or egg" question that I think plays into the wider identity crisis of the West. The relationship between automation and the service industry, and its effect on our attitudes towards our lives. Some of us like to strive for things like a $15/hr minimum wage, while at the same time encouraging the science and technology that will render our jobs obsolete. We hope that we can reap the benefits of this new technology and its ability to make our lives easier, but we think we can have it without dealing with the cost it has on our jobs. The question is, can we potentially create new manual labor jobs due to the necessity of maintaining these machines? I do not have the answer, but perhaps the BLS or some other source could calculate it. Of course, none of this even scratches the existential surface of our plummeting birthrates or our continued questions as a nation of what it means to be American, though that is a different story. Overall, you bring up a crucial point about what automation means for humans.
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