SUMMARY:The U.S. economy added 304,000 jobs in January, according to new economic survey data. Although the government shutdown pushed the unemployment rate higher, the payroll report shows that hiring was much stronger than expected. John Yang talks to Neil Irwin of The New York Times and Danielle Paquette of The Washington Post, about what the numbers mean and why manufacturing jobs are so important.
When Donald Trump announced a campaign stop in Erie, Pennsylvania in August, it seemed like an unusual move. The blue-collar community on the shores of Lake Erie had not voted for a Republican presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan in 1984. For decades, labor unions endorsed Democratic candidates and their members voted in step.
But the landscape in Erie was changing. Well-paying manufacturing jobs that once sustained families in the region were disappearing. Residents were leaving in search of better economic prospects.
General Electric Transportation, once Erie's largest employer, began the election year by shedding 1,500 of the 4,500 jobs at its locomotive plant that paid, on average, a comfortable $34 an hour. Over the past three years, the company had gradually shifted production to a non-union facility in Fort Worth, Texas in an effort to minimize costs and keep up with global competition.
Erie, along with dozens of other manufacturing hubs along the Rust Belt, have seen seismic shifts as technology has quenched the demand for manual labor on factory floors. Companies like GE that once sustained the region have either cut jobs, or closed entirely, in recent years. Since 1990, Erie County has lost 16,000 manufacturing jobs, representing 44 percent of the industry there. In the year leading up to the election, unemployment in Erie rose from 5 percent to 7 percent.
The anxiety and excitement was palatable at the ice hockey arena when Trump took the stage in Erie. His calls to lower taxes and punish companies from leaving the United States were greeted with thunderous cheers. Bucking conventional wisdom about America's economy, Trump promised to renegotiate trade deals and “bring back” jobs that many economists say have been lost to automation.
“Erie has lost a lot, right?” Trump said. “Hang in, don't leave. I promise we can fix it so fast. We will stop these countries from taking our jobs. We will stop these countries from taking our companies.”
On Election Day, Trump defied expectations in Erie, taking a county that Barack Obama won by more than 19,000 votes in 2012, and winning it by around 2,000 votes. His victory in Pennsylvania was the first by a Republican presidential candidate since 1988. Trump also won other traditionally Democratic states like Michigan and Wisconsin, propelled by voters from similar counties throughout the industrial heartland.
Trump's message resonated with small business owners like Joe and Sondralee Orengia. A champion power lifter, Joe manages Joe's Gym, while Sondralee operates Custom Audio, an electronics store. Both say they have seen fewer customers in recent years, and are excited about Trump's promise to return manufacturing jobs and revitalize the Erie economy.
“The Democratic Party's so strong here and then you get someone like Donald Trump who is really a very different candidate. I mean, we've never seen anything like him before,” Sondralee said. “I think a lot of people are fearful, especially the Democrats, but I think the people who voted for him, they're hopeful.”
Joe Orengia voted for Democratic candidates in the past, but registered as a Republican for the first time after reading Trump's book, “Crippled America: How to Make Our Country Great Again.” He showed his support by designing and selling “Pump for Trump” T-shirts that proudly displayed Trump's face superimposed onto a cartoon power lifter.
Orengia, who is 70 years old, grew up in the 1950s during the heyday of manufacturing, when more than half of Erie workers were employed in factories. After apprentice school, he worked as an ironworker and helped construct factory buildings for companies like GE and Hammermill Paper Company.
“I was one of their best climbers,” he said. “I always got the job of putting the buildings together, which was fun. You climb up the column, a big piece of steel comes up, you bolt it up, you walk out, unhook the cable and stand there and wait for the next piece.”
Hammermill, which was bought by International Paper Company, shut its Erie factory in 2002. Many buildings that Orengia helped to build have been torn down.
“They were some of the best years of my life working down there, putting them up. They are gone and the people are gone,” he said.
IMHO: Sorry folks, manufacturing of the '50s and '60s are gone and NOT coming back. You now live in the high-tech world which means production with fewer people aka fewer jobs. You need to upgrade your job skills for the new world.
Excerpt
SUMMARY: Erie County, Pennsylvania, has long been a manufacturing center, but jobs have been declining since the 1970s. In collaboration with the NewsHour and Marketplace, Frontline offers a look at the hopes and hardships in regions that voted for President Trump. Jared Bernstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and Douglas Holtz-Eakin of American Action Forum talk more with Jeffrey Brown.
SUMMARY: When it comes to luxury items, consumer minds are likely to think about some of the world's fashion meccas. Think Paris. Milan. New York. But Detroit? One growing company would like to think so. With its line of watches, bikes, bags and other items, Shinola (aka 'Shinola Detroit') is aiming to have the Motor City known for more than its cars and financial woes. Special correspondent Roben Farzad reports.
HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour):How a small company in Detroit is trying to bring more manufacturing of a different kind back to the Motor City.
In fact, the company is branding its products as built in Detroit. But what does that really mean?
Special correspondent Roben Farzad has the story, part of our series on business and economics, Making Sen$e, which airs Thursdays.
ROBEN FARZAD, special correspondent:Shinola's flagship store in Midtown Detroit showcases hand-made leather goods, bicycles constructed on site, and, of course, watches, the product that put this luxury brand on the map.
When you look at your marketing research for, say, a 40-something with some money to spend walks into a store, and aspires to buy a Shinola watch, what is that person buying?
JACQUES PANIS, President, Shinola: First and foremost, a high-quality time piece that has a story behind it
ROBEN FARZAD: President Jacques Panis says that story is about Detroit, a city that got hit especially hard by a financial crisis that saw Washington bailing out General Motors.
Adding insult, the NFL's Lions went winless, the city's mayor was indicted, and Detroit later filed for the biggest bankruptcy in municipal history. Even so, five years ago, Shinola set up shop here in a former GM lab.
JACQUES PANIS: It's a city that is going to be one of the great stories of our country. And, yes, it fell on hard times. And we at Shinola have come to this city and have been a small part of this revitalization.
ROBEN FARZAD:The company has created almost 400 jobs here, 240 in manufacturing. Mesha McCoy was laid off by a car parts maker in 2009.
This feels much less kind of what I imagine manufacturing to be. It's a clean room. We're wearing, you know, smocks and we're wearing things over our shoes.
After three decades of torrid growth, China is encountering an unfamiliar problem with its newly struggling economy: a huge buildup of unsold goods that is cluttering shop floors, clogging car dealerships and filling factory warehouses.
The glut of everything from steel and household appliances to cars and apartments is hampering China’s efforts to emerge from a sharp economic slowdown. It has also produced a series of price wars and has led manufacturers to redouble efforts to export what they cannot sell at home.
The severity of China’s inventory overhang has been carefully masked by the blocking or adjusting of economic data by the Chinese government — all part of an effort to prop up confidence in the economy among business managers and investors.
But the main nongovernment survey of manufacturers in China showed on Thursday that inventories of finished goods rose much faster in August than in any month since the survey began in April 2004. The previous record for rising inventories, according to the HSBC/Markit survey, had been set in June. May and July also showed increases.
“Across the manufacturing industries we look at, people were expecting more sales over the summer, and it just didn’t happen,” said Anne Stevenson-Yang, the research director for J Capital Research, an economic analysis firm in Hong Kong. With inventories extremely high and factories now cutting production, she added, “Things are kind of crawling to a halt.”
Problems in China give some economists nightmares in which, in the worst case, the United States and much of the world slip back into recession as the Chinese economy sputters, the European currency zone collapses and political gridlock paralyzes the United States.
China is the world’s second-largest economy and has been the largest engine of economic growth since the global financial crisis began in 2008. Economic weakness means that China is likely to buy fewer goods and services from abroad when the sovereign debt crisis in Europe is already hurting demand, raising the prospect of a global glut of goods and falling prices and weak production around the world.
Corporate hiring has slowed, and jobs are becoming less plentiful. Chinese exports, a mainstay of the economy for the last three decades, have almost stopped growing. Imports have also stalled, particularly for raw materials like iron ore for steel making, as industrialists have lost confidence that they will be able to sell if they keep factories running. Real estate prices have slid, although there have been hints that they might have bottomed out in July, and money has been leaving the country through legal and illegal channels.
Interviews with business owners and managers across a wide range of Chinese industries presented a picture of mounting stockpiles of unsold goods.
I am Retired U.S. Navy (22yrs) and a Vietnam Veteran. After my Navy retirement I was in the computer related industry, now retired. In 2000 I was a registered Republican and voted for George W. Bush. Six months of having Bush in the Whitehouse forced me to re-evaluate my political stance. I had always thought of myself as a Moderate Republican, but was a Republican by "default" NOT because of close examination of the GOP. Due to what has happened in America since 2000, I now consider myself a progressive, and registered as a Non-Affiliated voter.
*Anti-First Amendment policies that attempt to turn America into a theocracy by enshrining ANY religious belief as law.
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