Nostalgia For Manufacturing Jobs Is Misplaced

President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are competing to convince voters that they alone can protect manufacturing jobs, promising to use tariffs, “Buy American” rules, and subsidies to get the job done. Their supporters praise their efforts, convinced that the manufacturing jobs once common in the 1950s and 60s are vital to U.S. prosperity. This nostalgia is misplaced. We should not mourn the decline of manufacturing employment that has released millions of people from dull, uninteresting work.

That may sound harsh, but I know from experience. I grew up in a suburb of Dayton, Ohio, a classic Rust Belt city built around manufacturing companies like General Motors (GM), Frigidaire, National Cash Register, and Delco Electronics. One summer while I was in college I worked at Moraine Assembly, a GM factory located just south of Dayton. GM hired college students to fill in for assembly line workers who were on their summer vacations since the line only works if there is someone at every station.

This was during the early aughts SUV craze, so demand was strong for the midsize SUVs—GMC Jimmy, Chevy Trailblazer, GMC Envoy, Oldsmobile Bravada—assembled at the plant. We made roughly 500 vehicles per shift, two shifts per day. The pay was relatively good, about $13 per hour at a time when the federal minimum wage was $5.15. This included an hourly bonus since I worked the swing shift—two days on the early shift, two days off, then two days on the late shift.

Most of the regular workers, especially the more senior ones, disliked the swing shift because it messed up their sleep schedule and interfered with their family lives. I was a college kid unconcerned about regular sleep with no family to care for, so taking the extra money was an easy choice.

Late shifts are one notable drawback of factory work. An overnight shift is not a pro-family job since you need to sleep when your spouse and kids are awake. I got off the late shift around 4:00 AM then slept most of the day before going back in around 5:30 PM, leaving only a few waking hours to spend time with friends and family.

Eliminating overnight shifts may seem like a solution, but usually it does not make financial sense. Factories are more profitable the more they produce since the fixed costs of the building and machinery can be spread over more output. If demand is high enough, it makes sense to run a factory 24 hours a day. Moraine Assembly had two 10 hour shifts per day, so it essentially did that.

Some jobs require night shifts—doctors, nurses, police—but if automation can eliminate a night shift job, we should let it. Over the years, machines without families that can operate 24 hours a day have eliminated many night shift jobs, and that is a pro-family development we should celebrate.

The swing shift took some getting used to, but the worst part of the job by far was its dullness. As I mentioned, we made about 500 vehicles per shift, meaning each person did the same thing 500 times per day. These were not complicated jobs. They taught a college kid like me how to do one in about 10 minutes. Then a supervisor or another full-time worker watched me for another 10 to 15 minutes to make sure I got the hang of it. After about an hour, I was as good as someone who had done the job for 20 years.

In a way I was lucky. Because I filled in for people, I moved around more often than most. The two jobs I spent the most time at were attaching gas tanks to the frame and installing a control arm, which is part of the front suspension system. I also installed spare tire mounts, rear axles, engine mounts, and worked on the trim line installing speaker wire. I quickly got the hang of each job, then boredom kicked in.

Line work allows your mind to wander. It is like driving on the highway: Your hands are doing something, but you do not need to think about it. So, you think about other things: Plans for your day off; what you would do if you won the lottery; how well your favorite sports team will perform next season. You dwell on problems: Can I pay my bills? Will my significant other still be mad at me when I get off? Why is my kid struggling at school? These worries could drive you crazy.

It was loud in Moraine Assembly so some people, including me, used ear plugs, which made it difficult to talk with your neighbors to break up the monotony. Others listened to radios with the volume set just high enough to overcome some of the noise. There was not a lot of relationship building on the factory floor.

This job convinced me that humans are not meant for assembly line work. It is hard to form bonds with coworkers. There are no problems to solve, no new challenges to overcome, and no thrill of achievement. The slog of factory work goes against our human nature. We enjoy challenges, value novelty, and delight in tinkering and experimentation. Factory work provides none of that.

When I discuss this in conversation people tend to agree, at least partially. But then some say the quiet part out loud: We need factory work because some people are just not capable of anything else. That is rubbish. In his book Mass Flourishing, economist Edmund Phelps reminds us that, “Even the worker of ordinary education can be engaged in and can gain intellectual development from the formation of skills…arising from problems that are put to him or her in the workplace”.

We should not protect jobs we do not need because we think a portion of the population needs something to keep them busy. People are capable of things even they may not realize, and if government is going to put its thumb on the scale it should be doing so in a way that challenges us to reach our potential rather than coddles us with jobs better performed by mindless machines.

In addition to these shortcomings, factory jobs are mediocre jobs by more traditional criteria. As The Economist recently noted, job security, safety, and benefits in service-sector jobs typically meet or exceed those of manufacturing jobs. According to the most recent wage data, average hourly earnings of private service-providing jobs are $34.84, slightly higher than the $34.00 average hourly earnings of manufacturing jobs. This simple comparison includes workers in higher-wage service industries such as financial services and information technology, but even when researchers control for education, age, and other worker characteristics, they find that the manufacturing wage premium has disappeared.

The manufacturing sector also has a productivity problem. Since the start of 2021, manufacturing labor productivity growth has averaged -0.1% at an annual rate compared to 2% for the economy as a whole. This bodes poorly for future wage growth in the industry since productivity growth drives wage growth.

If the typical manufacturing job does not pay better or provide better benefits than other jobs, there is even less reason for the government to protect it.

To be clear, this does not mean we should not make things in America, nor is it a criticism of factory workers. All productive work is noble and a society that does not value work will not last long. But romanticizing labor-intensive manufacturing undermines the innovation and dynamism that generates more fulfilling work. The kind of work that challenges the mind as well as the body. The kind of work that pushes us to learn and develop new skills. The kind of work fit for humans capable of solving complex problems.

Six hundred years ago most of our ancestors eked out a living off the land. Sixty years ago, many of them enjoyed a more comfortable life, though arguably more boring, by tightening the same screws every day. Neither situation was great and longing for the latter makes no more sense than longing for the former.

In Mass Flourishing, Phelps argues that modern economies are good because they generate more opportunities for people to pursue the good life. They “serve people’s urge to imagine and create the new…to seek to innovate, and their desire to pioneer new practice.” Using government policy to save traditional manufacturing jobs would be a setback, not a step forward.