America’s labor market has entered a “new normal” phrase. Although the unemployment rate has declined after the Great Recession, underemployment remains a major problem and the percentage of workers stuck in part-time jobs is well above historical norms. Yet, at the same time, employers are posting a record number of positions. Professor Joseph Fuller suggests that resolving this paradox will require education institutions and employers to adopt a new approach to skills training.
In many cases, once manufacturing capabilities go away, so does much of the ability to innovate and compete. Manufacturing, it turns out, really matters in an innovation-driven economy.
Some of the world’s most original thinkers explain the competitiveness challenge America faces and point the way forward.
Manufacturing matters to a nation’s economic prosperity, not because it is an important source of jobs (it currently represents only about 10% of US employment) but because manufacturing competence is often an integral part of innovation. By Professors Gary P. Pisano and Willy C. Shih.
For decades, U.S. companies have been outsourcing manufacturing in the belief that it held no competitive advantage. That has been a disaster.