If there’s one thing politicians agree on these days, it’s that manufacturing jobs are “good”.
Joe Biden is betting that massive subsidies for new factories will transform the outlook for American workers and the November election. His acting labor secretary recently embarked on a cheerful “Good Jobs Summer Tour” to promote the president’s plans. Donald Trump, Biden’s rival, is equally eager to put more obstacles in the hands of American workers, primarily by imposing tariffs on foreign goods. Politicians across the wealthy world believe that reversing the decades-long decline in manufacturing jobs would leave workers better off.
His guest Bartleby is not convinced. It is true that he has never worked in a factory and therefore feels no nostalgia for safety helmets and reflective vests. Even so, the idea that deindustrialization has worsened work is difficult to reconcile with the fact that data on worker satisfaction have been steadily improving for years.
The argument that industrial jobs are better than other types of jobs has a long history. Adam Smith believed that manufacturing was “productive,” unlike services such as banking, retail, or hospitality. The factories of the Industrial Revolution transformed living standards in 19th-century Europe and America, but they were also terrible places for workers, managing to be both excruciatingly dangerous and terribly boring. Things didn’t improve much with the rise of mass production in the early 20th century. Workers in Henry Ford’s automobile manufacturing plants, though relatively well-paid, complained that the work was mind-numbing. As one Ford worker remarked, “If I keep doing crazy number 86 for another 86 days or so, I’ll be crazy number 86 in the Pontiac asylum.”
Even during the postwar period (a lost paradise in the eyes of many Western politicians), people weren’t exactly thrilled about working in factories. In 1970, Fortune magazine coined the phrase “blue-collar blues” to describe the alienation felt by many manufacturing workers in an impersonal industrial system. One expert noted that such a worker would be “easy prey for demagogues who appeal to their resentment and desire for revenge”—a sentiment that sounds all too familiar.
Manufacturing enthusiasts will undoubtedly counter that jobs in the sector are far better today. Workplace accidents occur much less frequently than before. Most factories are air-conditioned. Robots perform many of the heavier and more repetitive tasks. And about a third of those working in manufacturing never come near a rivet and instead perform office-based functions such as design and engineering.
All of this may be true, but if we compare workers with similar levels of education, there is little evidence that they would be better off moving from the service sector to manufacturing. A study by statisticians at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics concluded that, on a variety of indicators, including wages, benefits, job security, and protection, “many industries within the service sector match or surpass those in the manufacturing sector.” This analysis of British data by Bartleby similarly shows that the quality of employment in the manufacturing sector is no better than average.
For decades, economists observed that manufacturing workers enjoyed a wage premium compared to comparable workers in other industries. However, a recent study published by the Federal Reserve shows that this premium has “disappeared” in recent years. Those who point to the insecurity of temporary jobs, such as food delivery, would do well to remember that manufacturing jobs tend to be more cyclical than those in the service sector. They are also more likely to disappear due to automation. It is not immediately obvious that a job tending to an industrial robot is more fulfilling than one operating an espresso machine at Starbucks, especially for workers who enjoy some human interaction.
According to Biden, “a job is much more than a paycheck. It’s a matter of dignity and respect.” That’s true, but workers should have dignity and respect wherever they work. If they don’t, politicians should focus on ensuring that the right standards are in place, rather than spending billions of dollars trying to recreate a past far less promising than they imagine.
Of course, companies also have a role to play, and there’s plenty of evidence that bosses who treat their employees well reap the benefits. And the workers themselves must face the fact that nostalgia can be deceiving.
