Comment by obscurette
7 hours ago
My wife is in manufacturing and although not in US, working for a company having production in US, EU, Asia etc. Her 1-minute comments why it's increasingly difficult to produce something in EU and US.
Bureaucracy - the levels of it are insane especially in EU, but US is not far behind. The loss of local partners and environment - every little thing you can do locally makes production easier and cheaper. Failure to attract young people – although production is cool, it's not Youtube influencer level cool and industry relies increasingly on older generations. Education - the quality of it is sinking almost all over the world. Insecurity - partly just part of times, but mostly coming from regulation, taxes etc.
>> it's not Youtube influencer level cool and industry relies increasingly on older generations
Usually it means the pay is crap, the schedule is bad and nobody is willing to invest into training. Why should young people select such career?
Strongly disagree on that last part. Unlike software engineering, where training is nearly non-existent and we expect everyone to show to their first job interview knowing about the big-O complexity of sorting algorithms, traditional manufacturing has a robust tradition of apprenticeship and training on the job.
It also has much better and more predictable hours than, say, the ever-popular gaming industry.
You're right that low pay is an issue, but pay is crap in part because of outsourcing. Any machine shop in the US is competing with China to an extent that, oddly, we don't actually see in the software space. The West is mostly using Western-made software, and outside of that, only India is invited to the club (and even that only as a subcontractor).
But a lot of it is also just culture / parenting. Every parent wants their kid to become a software engineer, a lawyer, or a doctor. There's basically zero pride in being a machinist.
There'd be pride if it paid similarly to a doctor.