A new year and a better image for manufacturing

Manufacturing has an old image problem that may, at long last, be fading away, at least to some extent. The image problem was somewhat understandable. When a major manufacturing plant shutters, it hurts the community. Improperly guarded machines like power presses can hurt (literally) individual workers. It’s little wonder that over the decades parents have wanted their kids to go to college and avoid the dangers and job insecurities of the shop floor.

The situation has changed over the past four years. In November 2011, when then congressman Don Manzullo gave the FABTECH keynote, he described how most on Capitol Hill had a view of manufacturing that was stuck in the past. Factory workers of previous generations sent their children to college to give them a better opportunity in life, and some of those kids now happened to be members of Congress.

That mindset and image of manufacturing remained, he said at the time, even though the sector had transformed entirely. Manzullo recalled one regional business council meeting in Illinois in which several community leaders wanted to attract not manufacturing but “technology-related industries” to the local area. Manzullo said nothing, but wanted to say, “Don’t you know they’re the same thing?”

A little more than three years later, the situation has changed dramatically. Manufacturing has led the economic recovery and turned into a political sweet spot. Politicians don’t agree on much these days, but few object to promoting advanced manufacturing. So when funding for advanced manufacturing research centers showed up in the recent omnibus spending bill, no one complained.

While the finance business overvalued assets, helped create a bubble, and sent the economy into a tailspin, manufacturing has created real things of value and has driven economic development. Sure, the industry still lays off talented people, but so does every other industry. Bad business decisions and bad luck aren’t limited to manufacturing alone. And sure, manufacturing doesn’t employ the semi-skilled or unskilled masses like it used to, but neither do most other sectors.

As we head into the New Year, manufacturing’s image is in pretty good shape. It won’t change hiring challenges in the short term, but the good image may have profound long-term effects. Today’s parents may have lost their jobs not in manufacturing, but in finance, real estate, law, or elsewhere in the “desk job” world. So when talking about careers with their kids, they may bring up manufacturing as a serious option, not as a career to avoid.