Several of President Donald Trump’s biggest policy goals — namely, spending cuts and immigration crackdowns — are acting as crosscurrents and severely affecting his aim at creating a new manufacturing revival, some analysts and economists are warning.
In his second term, Trump has set about upending the global economy through trade wars against China and other countries, all to help achieve that revival. But speed bumps are in the way. For one, there are more than 400,000 manufacturing jobs that remain unfilled, according to new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Much of that shortfall stems from younger generations whose numbers are too small to replace the much larger baby boomer workforce as they near retirement, economists argue.
Analysts say they believe the deficit will only expand over time if companies are incentivized to build more domestic factories in the United States. The industry will likely need about 3.8 million additional workers by 2033, and of those, about 1.9 million will go unfilled, Manufacturing Institute projections show.
Those estimates were calculated prior to Trump’s rollout of his aggressive, across-the-board import taxes, which theoretically could create an even bigger need for workers.
Other factors are getting in the way of filling vacant positions, too, such as Trump’s immigration deportations that could starve manufacturers of the workers to fill those jobs. The Trump administration is moving at breakneck speed on mass deportations.
The number of detentions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement has gone up 25% since Trump took office for his second term. Earlier this month, Trump sent orders to ease up on deporting illegal immigrants working in agriculture and other industries, but his administration has since reportedly doubled its efforts.
Shifting young Americans away from high employment where a college degree is necessary toward jobs that require skill sets is easier said than done, said Ron Hetrick, an economist with Lightcast, which offers labor data to universities and industry.
“We spent three generations telling everybody that if they didn’t go to college, they were a loser,” Hetrick told The New York Times, referring to a dramatic move away from training young people for manufacturing positions outside of high school. “Now we are paying for it. We still need people to use their hands.”
To address what Trump and White House officials say is out-of-control spending, his administration has been on a cutting spree. Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill are also helping to pare down spending through Trump’s big tax bill and other legislation.
But some of that has included aggressive cuts to training programs for blue-collar workers. For instance, Trump is working to eliminate the Job Corps, a six-decade-old program that provides at-risk young people a path to a career in the trades.
“The gap between available skills and needed skills in the workforce is widening,” Chris Kastner, the president and chief executive of HII, told The New York Times. Training programs help to fill that gap, and thus create the runway needed for ramping up employment.
Manufacturing jobs are also not always well-paid positions.
Some economists say talk of shortages in the industry falls flat if companies won’t put up wages necessary to drive people toward the positions. Oren Cass, the chief economist and founder of conservative think tank American Compass, made this argument recently to NPR.
“I have less than zero sympathy for employers who go around complaining about labor shortages and skills gaps,” Cass said.
Manufacturers have hiked their pay in recent years, slashing the number of open manufacturing positions from their peak of more than one million open spots in April 2022. They went that route during the COVID pandemic, as employees began fleeing, retiring or dying from the virus.
Have a news tip? Contact Christopher White at cdwhite@sbgtv.com. Content from The National Desk is provided by Sinclair, the parent company of FOX45 News.
from Baltimore Sun https://ift.tt/DcWuVqO
via IFTTT
