“People are realizing we actually have to make things here,” said Angelia Erbaugh, president of the Dayton Regional Manufacturers Association. Erbaugh sees the opinion swing as a path to the vital job of recruiting youth to a career. “We have an opportunity now that people outside manufacturing are paying attention again. We have to seize this opportunity, particularly on the career side.”
For Bill Lukens, CEO and owner of manufacturer Stillwater Technologies in Troy, it’s time for policies to foster more domestic production.
“Finally, people are realizing — the president and his administration and both parties, everyone — that it’s time to level the playing field. And that has been past due frankly,” he said. “But we’re still losing jobs, and still going off shore.”
This is a critical moment, said Eric Burkland, president of the 1,600-member Ohio Manufacturers’ Association.
Ohio manufacturing, once left for dead, is now a matter of priority for government officials.
“There is a sentiment developing and if we seize the moment, we can experience the renaissance of American manufacturing,” he said.
The past 30 years has seen manufacturing jobs drop from 19.5 million to 11.8 million.
Ohio lost 3,500 factories in 10 years, the number of manufacturing operations falling 18 percent from 19,697 to 16,159. That has led to the loss of 369,097 jobs in Ohio since 2001, federal figures show.
President Obama in his State of the Union address used the term “manufacturing” 18 times, struck a theme of reversing the offshoring trend, and talked up the resurgent auto industry.
“Today, General Motors is back on top as the world’s No. 1 automaker. Chrysler has grown faster in the U.S. than any major car company. Ford is investing billions in U.S. plants and factories. And together, the entire industry added nearly 160,000 jobs. What’s happening in Detroit can happen in other industries.”
Ohio Gov. John Kasich said Friday that it’s urgent the manufacturing industry better communicate anticipated work force needs to education and government, saying the situation is a “total breakdown in work force training.” But he called the issue “all fixable” with cooperation. “If a company doesn’t tell me what they need, how do we fix it? People gloss over the hard stuff. Things like this don’t happen by accident,” Kasich said.
New employment figures released Friday show that U.S. manufacturing gained 50,000 jobs in January 2012 — the biggest montly gain in that sector since August 1998.
“The surge in job growth is a clear sign that American manufacturing can be competitive globally, said Scott Paul, executive director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing. “President Obama is right to focus on an array of policies to boost domestic manufacturing jobs, and we need Congress to act. There is still a long way to go to get manufacturing jobs and output above prerecession levels.”
John Russo, coordinator of labor studies at Youngstown State University, sees the discussion being driven by frustration over high unemployment, which his research puts far higher than the official figure when the discouraged and underemployed are counted.
“I would argue to you we are in a depression,” he said. “There is an enormous amount of discontent and they are looking for answers. Obama’s speech was an attempt to find a middle road through this with tax cuts and helping small business people.”
A national poll of 1,200 likely voters jointly conducted by Democrat pollster the Mellman Group and Republican pollster Ayres, McHenry & Associates found that when given an “either/or” choice, 29 percent wanted Washington to focus on deficit reduction while 67 percent favored job creation.
Creating manufacturing jobs was the top priority selected for Obama and respondents rejected the idea that high tech or service jobs could replace manufacturing.
More importantly, the poll said, there’s intensifying bipartisan agreement for “Buy American” policies and ending trade that favors foreign goods.
“What this survey demonstrates is Americans believe a strong manufacturing sector is a central requirement of a strong economy,” pollster Mark Mellman said Thursday. “The public is willing to take a wide variety of measures to strengthen manfuacturing because they realize it is central to our economic health.”
In his State of the Union, manufacturing revival was the president’s unifying theme. He proposed a policy shift to change tax laws to reward companies bringing jobs back to the U.S. and eliminate tax breaks for companies that shift business offshore.
But for Ohio, the challenge is great given the magnitude of losses and slow pace of recovery. The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services reported in January that in 12 months, nonfarm wage and salary employment grew by 72,400, with manufacturing’s share at 18,300 jobs.
However, an encouraging study last year by The Boston Consulting Group, a global management consulting firm, highlighed favorable trends. It concluded that within the next five years, “the United States is expected to experience a “manufacturing renaissance” as the wage gap with China shrinks and certain U.S. states become some of the cheapest locations for manufacturing in the developed world.”
The study predicted less labor-intensive products made in modest volumes are most likely to return to domestic production, such as household appliances and construction equipment. It said labor-intensive goods produced in high volumes, such as textiles, apparel, and TVs, would likely continue to be made overseas.
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