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I'm in industrial controls/automation and also electrical maintenance, currently in-house. We do have experienced manufacturing staff in this country, most of them are immigrants. Technical jobs such as mine are paid pretty well, but especially with our aging manufacturing infrastructure (old, decaying plants) - which China et al are decades away from - there's not enough skill to go around and so we tend to be very overworked, causing further attrition. I guess my question is why can't we just import more talent/skill from places like China, just as we've done in science and medicine? People still want to come here.

The article isn't clear on exactly where the shortages are eg technicians, QA, forklift drivers, operators. The un-/low-skilled positions are again largely filled with immigrants as it is. These jobs, like agriculture (where I worked in a past life), are not for the faint of heart.

As for job security, we Millenials giggle dejectedly to even imagine that to be a thing.

Your point on the college-educated bias against blue-collar work is apt; even if it's better money many simply don't want to accept that we paid through the nose for something that doesn't pan out economically.

Not clear on the meaning of your last sentence ie 'movement is measured in a country'. Do you mean PRC being totalitarian?

I agree immigration is a solution. US immigration is literally a trillion dollar bill lying on the sidewalk. For some mysterious reasons US doesn't want to pick it up.

It is likely because about 25% of the country would not like a more liberal immigration policy.

There are merits to immigration but the politics around this has become toxic.

I do not know how the US gets back on this horse without having bipartisan legislation.

Such legislation looks pretty hard to be supported by a majority of the republic party’s primary voters. So, the question is what gives.

Any one sided policy moves on this by the Democratic Party would likely face risk to be reversed.

This is the case for essentially all US federal governance at this point. Something’s going to have to give; we will either plummet into fascism as 45% of the country seems to want or we will somehow back down from the precipice through some yet unforeseen series of events.

Totally off topic, but I don't think the events will be "unforeseen". There are so many plausible predictions of what the future will hold, it's unlikely we will be surprised. At least, science fiction readers won't be surprised. My personal bet is that Star Trek has the closest thing to accurate future-history. We go through some really bad times, then master fusion technology and suddenly there is enough of everything to go around. Clearly we have a lot of growing to do before being in a post-scarcity world means that everyone is well cared for. Fingers crossed.

> It is likely because about 25% of the country would not like a more liberal immigration policy.

The blame isn’t just with the “build the wall” crowd, the majority of the other 75% of Americans do not place fixing immigration as a top priority, and immigrants are not voters in the short to medium term so they‘re not benefiting anyone in the next election.

Also, immigrants aren't particularly likely to vote for you just because you let them in, nor do they even like other immigrants themselves so they're not going to vote for them either. That's how powerful American cultural imperialism is; we make them American as soon as they get here.

The politics of immigration have always been toxic, see the quota system, or Archie Bunker, or 'Irish need not apply'. I think that reframing immigration as probably our biggest strategic asset historically might have some potential. If Jewish physicists had stayed in Europe, would we have nuclear supremacy? If Chinese laborers hadn't gone to California, would we have the Transcontinental railroad? Where would NASA be without the stolen German engineers?

The Democrats talk about it like it's charity and the humane thing to do, and the Republicans come back with 'first we have to take care of our own'. HN seems to understand this, but it isn't what makes the news.

How long does it take to train an apprentice in your field? Let’s say for electrical maintenance?

Electrical maintenance? We could start someone today and the rest depends on learning ability. You don't need a license to work in-house. In any case, it's rare to work alone, there's always someone older than you in the shop, at least until you become the aged master.

Controls/Automation engineer? I apprenticed for 4 years and still learn something every day.

Not sure what state you are in, but in California community colleges are fairly good. They can provide trade education together with apprenticeship programs. This system can close the gap for many tradesman jobs. It is not gonna happen in a year, but over next 10 years. In 2012 Jobs told Obama that those jobs aren’t coming back, around the time Tesla was able to pull off Models S. Iirc 52% of it was US made, which seems impressive.

It’s been almost two years since the dependency on import from very few country for critical things was widely exposed due to pandemic. This would be enough time to train someone junior or have them be half way through their apprenticeship.

Now we want to move to alternative energy source, which most likely means that solar and lithium batteries alone aren’t gonna suffice. At the same time, EU is learning the hard way why it’s not ideal for the energy sector to rely to heavily on a foreign irrational actor.

I think there is enough momentum to push the needle and see results in 5-10 years.

Thanks for the comment.

> most of them are immigrants

This proves my point: America has lost is manufacturing capacity. These people are not "Made in America". Of course you can import more of these people, but I'm not sure the half the population is into that given who we had as our last president.

> "working a skilled manufacturing job where your every movement is measured in a country."

Typo. I meant to say "company." If you work in a factory where you make motors or fencing, your output can be directly seen and measured. With desk jobs, the outputs are at times a little more unmeasurable.

>I'm not sure the half the population is into that given who we had as our last president.

Their issue is with illegal immigration and drug trafficking across the border. The dream would be to let American jobs stabilize after addressing undocumented labor. Get everyone protected under the law and paying into the system. Then import people as needed.

The other half of the country seems to support a system of exploitative labor because not doing so sounds racist.

There are plenty of people from generationally-marginalized families and communities who would love to be hired for positions where they'd be well-compensated while developing valuable skillsets. They're fine with the work being difficult or non-"sit-on-your-ass" oriented. But when People of Influence jump to the solution of, "Import skilled workers that will not only compete for these jobs we need filled, but likely shut out existing residents who've never had access to the requisite training or networks, forever," it speaks to how well PoI truly intend to take care of, say, PoC. If you sense that your abilities won't be appreciated in the future, why spend the time and energy developing them?

At the end of the day, we pursue economic affluence for the promise of social stability it's supposed to bring. Selling out existing Americans, rather than investing in them, in order to save money and hit the ground running short-term, is likely a long-term demographic nightmare. I say this as a progressive, not because I'm anti-immigration, but because the solution suggested seems less about keeping the country open and more about maintaining the wealth of a few at the expense of their marginalized neighbors across the train tracks.

Remember how the auto industry brought a bunch of Japanese trainers over years ago and then threw their recommendations for developing the local workforce in the trash? Let's do the right thing this time.

On the off chance that this isn't just an academic exercise in moral posturing, and you in fact do progressivism or labor advocacy rather than just identify with it, and happen to actually know any of these "people of color", please do encourage them to apply for any of the numerous job postings which have hitherto rotted on the vine for a year or more. Even the People of Influence - to a man Trumpian troglodytes though they are - seem to me generally willing to take a shot at this point.

By the way, these postings most always include the hourly pay, which everyone earns, including the Ukrainian refugees and guest workers we have at our plant atm.

> So why choose that career path for even $25 or $30 an hour? It's risky.

that's just a long way of saying the people aren't paid enough to go into the career.

Imagine if these manufacturer workers get paid as much as a doctor would. People would be rushing to join. Of course, the reason they can't be paid as high, is because their output isn't that valuable - the customers of their output expect a low price.

If the pay only lasts for a year, you might reconsider it as a career path.

But you would be a fool to do so.

We manufacture arms, ordinance , and aerospace craft pretty well. Also Toyota cars, believe it or not?

https://theaviationist.com/2022/10/05/south-koreas-f-35as-gr...

https://news.usni.org/2021/01/19/navy-calls-freedom-lcs-prop...

https://www.defensenews.com/news/your-navy/2020/08/21/watchd...

Not very well anymore, we can't even keep the old stuff operational, let alone make new stuff that works.

The first point about the f35 is controversial for a variety of reasons - look up the reformers. They're still around today, and they still criticize the f35s metrics in all the ways they don't matter. Secondly, the vast majority of strike craft aren't ready for war in peacetime. This might be seen as a remarkable problem with the f35, if it didn't apply to many other strike craft the air force operate.

Second point was a known flaw with a long history that was overlooked, because, frankly, the LCS is a jobs program. But here's some of the history of the problem: when the LCS program was started, the demonstrators had appropriately sized combining gears - although it was likely the company underbid a bit to get on the contract. Mid-construction of future vessels the company that provided these combining gears was bought by another company. They updated their leadtime to three years per unit (each ship needs two) and were thusly booted from the contract. The next best size combining gear (from another supplier) wasn't good enough. And now you know the history. On top of all this, the companies building these ships are now flushing the oil and remachining the combining gears to be more durable - so they're fixing this problem.

Third point, this is a point on maintenance of some super large ships - which is both difficult and can only be carried out at ONE shipyard in the whole USA for the two newest carrier classes (Newport News). A slipping of the maintenance schedule would be natural with a full work schedule - and they have their hands full building the new Ford class supercarriers.

You've selected three problems on complex systems in a country that makes hundreds of different defense products. I think my point still stands.

> Secondly, the vast majority of strike craft aren't ready for war in peacetime.

If you can't maintain your aircraft in peacetime, what do you think will happen when you go to war? Aircraft become more difficult to repair because the op tempo increases and lower echelon maintenance must be performed in theater. There is a thing called 'readiness' and you're attempting to normalize the lack of it.

> Second point was a known flaw with a long history that was overlooked,

Yeah it doesn't look good for the defense industry when they knowingly build stuff that is overpriced and doesn't work as a 'jobs program.'

> Third point, this is a point on maintenance of some super large ships - which is both difficult and can only be carried out at ONE shipyard in the whole USA for the two newest carrier classes (Newport News).

Sounds like my point still stands, we can't build new technology that works and we can't keep the old stuff going because of a lack of defense industry capability.

> You've selected three problems on complex systems in a country that makes hundreds of different defense products. I think my point still stands.

This might work to persuade some bureaucrats but when you go to war, the enemy doesn't care about why you can't keep your war machine functional, they just like it that you can't (because they get to win). These are just high profile instances of a general malaise. There are dozens of examples we could discuss.

> There are no experienced manufacturing workers… This isn't a matter of the price of labor.

Nonetheless the shortage may be addressed by increasing the price. Witness the proliferation of software boot camps.

I find myself confused this fundamental mechanism of free markets seems stuck for this market in this nation. Which hidden incentive(s) do I not comprehend?

Is it simply that decades of business acumen and planning assume cheap labor, anchoring executives’ expectations well below what is now required?

>they have no guarantee their manufacturing job won't be shipped overseas again.

Indeed. This is all just temporary work until China recovers from COVID.

IMO China is on the way out. Their real estate market is crashing, and that is bring down the banking industry. The Zero Covid policy is crashing their economy, and the younger generations would rather "Let it Rot."

The CCP might not make it to the end of the 2020s. If they somehow get all the above sorted out, the demographic charts show that will be the time they run out of young people. But it is worse than that. The charts may have overcounted the younger generations by up to 100 million people.

The de-globalization that is going on, and the fact they can't feed their population, means they will have to make drastic changes. They may even have to de-urbanize large sections of their population to keep hundreds of millions from starving.

China is on the way out.

Maybe.

Never underestimate your enemy

China is not the enemy. That is illusory. China does not want your blood, The US does not want China's blood.

All China and the US want is to be better than the other. That makes them rivals. Very different from enemies. The irony is both rivals practically live in a symbiosis. We are rivals but survival for both China and the US involves mutual cooperation.

Yeah, sure.

/s

have you seen Chinese media? They want to become superpower and USA doenst want to loose that power thats how they became enemies as simple as that

I typically do not respond to posts about China partly, because I simply do not believe I know enough about it to comment appropriately. Still, what I do know is that accurate information about China in general is a lot harder to obtain that information about US. From get go this means that any discussion about demographics, real estate or banking is more speculative than anything else. Worse, it is hard to rely on anecdata, because of how large China's population is and how ( as I learned recently ) un-united China's population is ( when compared to US ). Those two factors alone should make one hesitate with offering any major predictions on its trajectory.

I am not automatically saying you are wrong, but with exception of real estate, there is little I can find where somewhat verifiable data seem to support it.

I'm chinese (american born), I have a lot of chinese friends and relatives so I know about a lot of the on the ground anecdotal data. From that anecdotal data, I would say this video perfectly matches what I'm seeing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V30VyMMce9s

I'm not Chinese American, or even American. I'm Canadian.

I never understood why people want another country to "collapse". It'd be such a humanitarian tragedy it would go from a quick moment of blind happiness to horror, think of the millions of elderly depending on pensions, already living on the edge. The kids depending on school lunches.

Our real enemies are at home, it's the corporations.

Americans love war.

From Vietnam to Iraq to Ukraine to Taiwan.

It's all a spectator sport for them. The USA has never been invaded by a foreign power since 1812.

It's easy to understand. Sports teams. It's the same concept. The US has literally been the best economy for decades. Now a 2nd place contender is rising up, it's natural for people to feel this way and latch on to every negative thing about that country and magnify it.

It happens on both sides, the Chinese feel the same way about the US of A too.

Analysis of electric lights at night observed by satellites normally correlates well with GDP, but in the case of China it doesn't. It indicates that GDP was being over-reported significantly:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3093296

Here is some demographic info.

China's population numbers: https://www.reuters.com/world/china/researcher-questions-chi...