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Comment by obscurette | Hacker News Reader

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.

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>> 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.

Probably not. Plumbing pays pretty well and it's almost never a parent's dream. It's probably below being an office assistant. We just attached a stigma to everything blue collar (= "uneducated").

Being a plumber pays acceptably, not well. Being a plumbing business owner can pay well, but would have less catchet than a doctor making the same amount, sure, but it's also far less common.

> Plumbing pays pretty well

Plumbing does not pay well for the average plumber. Not doctor-well at least, which is what you are responding to.

Can some plumbers make good money? Absolutely. But you need to do dirty, body-breaking work for years.

There’s nothing wrong with being a plumber and it’s a profession we surely need young people to go into. But the pay and trade offs vs a white color job will lean heavily in direction of the latter.

>> traditional manufacturing has a robust tradition of apprenticeship and training on the job.

We also have such tradition. Senior software engineers are teaching juniors.

Would tradition manufacturing employ an apprentice without knowledge about the tools and materials? I doubt that. Everyone now wants to get a senior employee with 20y of experience and pay junior rates.

    > Every parent wants their kid to become a software engineer, a lawyer, or a doctor.

Uh, what? Both sides of my family is nine aunties/uncles, and my parents. None of them pressured their children to select a specific career or even major in university. I think my experience is fairly common.

    > There's basically zero pride in being a machinist.

I cringe when I see the term "pride" used this way. Would you say that to a career machinist? I wouldn't. When I was growing up, I can still remember my elementary school bus driver named Barbara. She really took pride in driving our bus everyday, but was probably paid peanuts.

If you don't attend university, being a machinist is skilled labour that pays well. Plus, you can continuously self-educate to climb into more and more skilled roles that pay more. The salary is solidly middle class, and the work is probably in areas with a low cost of living.

There is a lot more demand for software engineers and doctors. (I'm not sure about lawyers - it used to be good, but last I heard it wasn't as good) The world doesn't need many machinists anymore since CNC can do such a good job. The world needs people to design the parts the CNC makes though - often in the past you would take that to a machinist to design on the machine, now you need to know CAD.

>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.

I disagree.

A lot of people, nerds (and me) included, would see no problem in taking an operational role inside manufacturing if it paid a livable wage and offered a career.

But somehow people still act shocked when nobody wants to work a job that pays retail wages.

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