Good Paying Manufacturing Jobs

The above referenced jobs are being lost at an alarming rate during this Bush presidency, some might have you believe. Is this a new phenomenon?

Let us try to uderstand why these are politically explosive in today's political environment.

First, manufacturing jobs do not require much education. Essentially, you must learn a particular skill and be able to replicate this constantly. It was good paying because the unions tried to prop this job up for its constituency. Ironically enough, this is one of the main reasons why these jobs have declined over the years.

The truth is, manufacturing employment's year-end peak was in 1978 at 19.334 million manufacturing jobs. This total has been declining ever since. As of August 2004, manufacturing employment is approximately 14.421 million jobs. In other words, this is not a new trend. In fact, most of these jobs losses occurred because of technology and improvements in productivity. However, it is much more politically volatile to blame this loss on foreigners: the big bogeyman of politics.