A Leaner, More Skilled U.S. Manufacturing Workforce
Year: 2006
Type: article
Abstract: While the U.S. manufacturing sector has contracted sharply since the early 1980s, employment in high-skill manufacturing occupations has risen by an impressive 37 percent. An investigation of the growth in high-skill manufacturing jobs reveals that virtually all of the nation’s industries have shared in this trend. Moreover, skill upgrading has occurred in all parts of the country, even those experiencing severe employment losses. O ver the past three decades, the United States has lost almost 5 million manufacturing jobs. As a result, the share of the nation’s workforce employed in this sector has dropped sharply, from 20 percent in 1979 to about 11 percent today. Productivity growth and mounting competition in labor-intensive goods production from lower-cost foreign manufacturers have in large part driven this decline. Because these forces
Authors: Richard Deitz, James Orr
Institution: Federal Reserve Bank of New York
Language: English
Subfield: Economics and Econometrics
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7099605167