JEC HEARING: Manufacturing in the USA: Training America’s Workforce

"Manufacturing in the United States has changed dramatically over the last 60 years. Low-tech, labor-intensive goods such as apparel, shoes, sporting goods, and toys that were once made in America are now imported, while U.S. manufacturers export high-tech, capital-intensive goods to the rest of the world.

Computer-driven machinery has replaced routine labor in manufacturing. This has boosted productivity growth, averaging 2.9 percent a year. What took 1,000 workers to manufacture in 1950 now takes only 184 workers. Consequently, manufacturing jobs as a share of total non-farm jobs have declined from 30.6 percent in 1950 to 8.9 percent in 2010.

Six decades ago, a high school dropout with no special skills could get a job on an assembly line, work hard, and over time enter the middle class. Today, a job in manufacturing demands special skills and may even require a college degree.

The changing nature of manufacturing demonstrates the imporhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.giftance of job training for the success of both America’s manufacturers and their workers. Congress enacted the Workforce Investment Act in 1998 to consolidate the federal government’s fragmented job training system into a coherent one-stop system that could serve the needs of employers and workers....."


Vice Chairman of Joint Economic Committee
Rep. Kevin Brady's
Opening Statement