Factory Job Decline in America
Every country, poor and developed nations, has its own problem. The United States, a powerful and prosperous nation, is also faced with many problems in her economy, politics, society, etc. Through the article in the Houston Chronicle, “Factory Jobs: 3 Million Lost Since 2000,” the author shows some people who find a solution when they lose their jobs by moving overseas, to Mexico, China and elsewhere. Moreover, he demonstrates how the US government argues and tries to solve this problem. After reading the article, I can understand the current economic problem in America is that manufacturing employment has been dropping for many years. I also may figure out some reasons causing this problem. It is interesting to know why manufacturing jobs have declined while manufacturing output has been rising.
At first, we should review the Force Labor which involves employment and unemployment. The rate of unemployment indicates how easy or difficult it is to find a job given the current state of the economy. When it is high, jobs are hard to find. According to this article, manufacturing employment is dropping. In other words, the unemployment rate in manufacturing is increasing. Many people are disappointed because America is losing jobs to poorer nations such as manufacturing jobs to China, Mexico and back-office work to India.
In fact, the loss of factory jobs does not affect entirely the whole unemployment rate of the United States. The average unemployment rate is still low because the employment in service industries is high in America. In a positive way, an economist at the Cato Institute thinks that “Every advanced economy has seen its employment in agriculture and manufacturing decline relative to services and America is no exception” (Daniel Griswold).
In a negative way, however, there are some problems when many people lose their factory jobs. Almost all those who work in factories are middle or lower class. They work to raise...