How Barack Obama Can Bring Manufacturing Jobs Back To America

As President Barack Obama heads to Asheville, N.C., Wednesday to push the themes outlined in his State of the Union address, the White House has unveiled a four-step plan it claims would make the U.S. a "magnet for jobs" by investing in manufacturing.

I was sitting in a briefing recently, where I heard how US GDP would be measurably affected by the floods in Thailand –- specifically through the shutdown of production of key auto parts. [0] That reminded me of the supply-chain-propagated impact of events nine months earlier, following the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

During the presidential campaign, President Barack Obama put forward proposals to boost the number of manufacturing jobs in the United States.  He took credit for helping make American-made goods more competitive by pressuring the Chinese to let the yuan appreciate against the dollar. He also favored reducing corporate tax rates and energy costs and proposed eliminating a tax provision that encourages offshoring, arguing that these proposals would help bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States.   The Spillover Effect  

Over the past three months, Facebook, Zynga and Groupon have lost between 33% and 52% of their market value. They are not alone. Other social networking, online marketing, clean-tech and bio-tech companies have fallen out of favor with some investors, fueling speculation regarding the future of the US technology sector. A growing number of skeptics are openly talking of a ‘high tech bubble’. Is the entire sector destined to a sudden and quick demise, similar to the dot-com bust of 2001, with widespread stock market collapses and mass layoffs?  

Guest blog post by Dr. Rebecca Blank, Acting Secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce.I just returned from the White House Business Council American Economic Competitiveness Forum on Manufacturing where I had an opportunity to hear from a group of American manufacturers—representing businesses of all sizes from across the country—about how the Obama Administration can continue to support them as they build things here and sell them everywhere. As we have seen in recent months, manufacturing is one of the bright spots for our economy. Over the past 2 ½ years, more than half-a-million manufacturing jobs have been created in the U.S. – the strongest job growth in that sector since the 1990s.  In fact, just last month, an additional 25,000 new manufacturing jobs were added.In terms of production, manufacturing output is up 20 percent since 2009, and increased again in July. One manufacturing sector that has been consistently strong is the motor vehicles and parts industry, which has added 165,000 jobs since June 2009— a sector that might not even exist in the US today if not for the assistance this Administration gave to the U.S. auto industry in 2009.This matters because we know that manufacturing jobs are good jobs that pay more than average and provide greater benefits. They strengthen economic security for middle class families.There is a powerful link between America’s ability to make things and America’s ability to innovate, compete, and create good jobs. We have come to realize that you can’t separate innovation and production—they have to sit near each other.  Manufacturers perform 70 percent of all private sector R&D, investing in and producing technological advances that accounted for 90 percent of U.S. patents.  Economic research indicates that innovation – in new products or new processes – was central to three-quarters of the nation’s economic growth since World War II and it is not an accident that the manufacturing sectors where America is most competitive are all advanced manufacturing, where new technologies, new products or new production processes are central to the success of specific firms.

EARLIER this year a Federal Reserve official tried to tamp down worries about inflation by noting that, while food and petrol were getting more expensive, you could now buy an iPad that was twice as powerful for the same price as the previous model. The remark, soon lampooned as “Let them eat iPads”, predictably drew derision. But it typified a tactic to which American leaders frequently turn when they need a rejoinder to economic doomsaying: cite an Apple product.

An increasing number of news articles are reporting on the increasing strength of manufacturing in the USA (and globally, actually). Made (once again) in America NovaSom chose Zentech Manufacturing Inc. for two key reasons: Executives here could oversee quality control, and the kits could be shipped to domestic customers in just days, not weeks or months.