Why America’s Manufacturing Revival May Stall Without Willing Workers
Donald Trump wants a renaissance, a rebirth of the manufacturing economy in America.
And there’s no question that many Americans want an economic turnaround to happen. After four plus years of inflation, supply chain issues, and a struggling economy, people want an economy on a growth trajectory that gives them hope.
Regardless of your viewpoints on Trump and his economic policies, an improving economy is a positive goal to work for.
Obviously, we aren’t there, yet, though, and, so, it seems like a fair question to ask:
What are the constraints?
Now, Trump has said that it will take some time to get the U.S. economy turned around, so we can say that inertia (the tendency for the economy to keep going in the same direction) is one of the barriers to a quick turn around.
There are other, more difficult barriers to deal with, though. The one that may be talked about the least may be the one that is hardest to get around: the labor force issue.
To turn around the U.S. economy, specifically to bring manufacturing back to the U.S., will require more workers with the right skillsets who can fill those jobs once they return to the States.
And that’s where we run into the problem. Jeffrey A. Tucker for The Epoch Times writes,
[T]here simply aren’t enough working-age people in the United States who know how to do stuff, care enough to do it, have the work ethic or mental discipline to make it through one full day’s work, or otherwise feel the inspiration to make themselves useful.
According to Tucker, there is a two-fold problem that will make bringing manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. difficult.
The first is simply that too few Americans have the skills to do the jobs. If a person doesn’t know how to do the job (and many jobs can’t be trained on-the-job), it doesn’t matter how much they want the job.
They simply can’t do the job. At least not until they take additional time out of the workforce to get trained.
And let’s be realistic: many Americans (including most of the people who would be inclined to fill those manufacturing jobs) don’t have the financial resources to be able to go get training without an income source.
They can’t get the training to fill those jobs because they’re too busy already working to support their families.
But that’s just the problem of skill set. Tucker mentioned another huge problem.
The other huge problem
That other problem is character or motivation.
Too many people simply don’t want to work.
If you don’t have ambition, why would you work more… or at all?
Many people don’t need to work. They can eat and sleep indoors without having to lift a finger, so they won’t work.
As Dave Chapelle famously quipped, “I want to wear Nikes. I don’t want to make them [...]!” (language warning if you click that link)
With people of that mindset, if Trump brings manufacturing jobs back to the U.S., even if they pay amazingly well, many (most?) of those people simply won’t take the jobs.
They can still eat and play video games without taking a manufacturing job, so that’s what they’ll decide to continue doing: living off of the efforts of someone else.
Of course, on any large scale, that kind of passivity (some would say laziness) can cause a society to fall apart.
That's why at least one major religion specifically commands that a person that can work but who will not work should not get fed.
That directive to allow lazy people to feel the discomfort of their passivity doesn’t tend to get enforced very often in western cultures, though (I’ll leave it to you to decide if you think that is a good or bad thing).
So, the lack of skilled and motivated workers in the U.S. is a significant barrier to revitalizing the U.S. manufacturing sector.
Beyond these issues, there is another consequence that you should know about, and that is…
The lack of employability has consequences that affect you and me
Now, I'm not talking in metaphorical terms as a way to try to guilt you into supporting people who don’t want to work.
No, I'm talking about very real-world consequences that affect all of us. Nicolas A. Pologeorgis with Investopedia writes:
From a macroeconomic perspective, a lack of employability contributes to both frictional and structural unemployment and affects the productivity of the labor force. This subsequently impacts a country’s standard of living, as measured by the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, and its potential for economic growth, as measured by aggregate demand and the GDP.
Translation: Less employable people leads to a smaller economy.
And a smaller economy means less prosperity for everyone. Yes, even if you have the motivation and training to work in the returning manufacturing sector.
After all, if those people can’t do the higher paying jobs due to lack of skills or won’t do those higher paying jobs due to lack of motivation, then…
…they won’t have the income to buy whatever you do sell.
We all are negatively impacted by this employability issue.
A smart question to ask here is, “How do we fix it?"
In many ways, the employability issue is a cultural issue, so there is no easy solution.
Again, many people who would like to take the new jobs simply cannot afford to take the time off to get the training that they would need to take the jobs.
And as far as the people who won’t work? Well, how do you push a cooked noodle uphill?
You don’t.
Until those people find or develop motivation, they will be a drag on the economy. Which will continue to negatively affect all of us.
Despite everything that I’ve said so far, not everything is bad news, though.
The good news is that there are things that are in your control, steps that you can take right now to take control of your situation and of your financial future so that the actions or inactions of others don’t sink your financial ship.
The most important first step to taking that control is setting your rudder in the right direction by diversifying with inflation-resistant stores of wealth so that you can arrive in a financial safe harbor.
Start your due diligence now by requesting your 2025 Precious Metals Information Kit.
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