Howard Wial is a fellow for the Brookings Institution
Metropolitan Policy Program. At first glance, manufacturing jobs
would appear to be a dying breed. The United States lost 6
million manufacturing jobs between early 2001 and late 2009. And
despite small gains during the last two years, the trend in
manufacturing employment for the last 30 years has been
downward. That has led some to argue that long-term job loss in
the industry is inevitable. But our research shows otherwise.
There are two common versions of the "inevitability" argument.
One holds that U.S. manufacturing wages are too high to be
internationally competitive. The other maintains that
manufacturing job losses are the result of productivity growth.
Both arguments are wrong. High wages can't be the culprit,
because wages in U.S. manufacturing are not especially high by
international standards. As of 2009, 12 European countries plus
Australia had higher average manufacturing wages than the United
States. Norway topped the list with an average m