The labor market is slowing, but it’s all good news in the White House.
The U.S. added 139,000 jobs in May, a slight decline from April, according to a jobs report released Friday. The unemployment rate remained at 4.2 percent, still within the ballpark of historic lows reached in 2023, when the unemployment rate reached 3.4 percent—the lowest it had been in more than five decades. But within the folds of the report hid a major red flag for Donald Trump’s agenda: The U.S. is still bleeding manufacturing jobs.
But even the president’s favorite conservative network couldn’t hide its dismay at the slight manufacturing downturn.
“Now, 8,000 manufacturing jobs were lost in May. That’s not what you wanted to see,” said Fox Business host Stuart Varney.
I know more were lost in June. My company, in a tariff response, is moving US jobs out because none of our global customers want to pay said tariffs, so we’re shrinking our us manufacturer operations and making other sites.
Edit: the tariffs to import the raw materials to actually make stuff is what costs my employer the most.
Putting tariffs on raw materials and natural resources you don’t have domestically is possibly the dumbest thing a politician could do.
I work at a factory in Canada. We just got a huge contract from European customers and we’ve been told we’re running more machines on 24/7 shifts to meet demand and hiring 50 new staff to do it. The clients switched from producing in the US to avoid costs associated with the trade war.
U mean asking manufacturers to pay MORE to produce in America encourages them to move production to other countries? You’re kidding!
Lol, you entirely misunderstand the issue.
Americans lack the skills and machining of modern manufacturing. It’s so expensive because they’d have to make buildings and teach skills that are already everywhere in China.
But sure, laugh like a fucking moron we’re taking behind the world because we don’t take care of workers or infrastructure.
Yes, it is easier to proceed assuming that I am a complete moron. Thanks :)
I did it as well, you’re welcome :)
It’s worse than that.
Let’s say I want to open a widget factory in America because of the tariffs. Sure, I can avoid the tariffs on the widgets themselves by making them here, but there’s a big problem…
What about the tariffs on the materials needed to make them?
So Trump wants to strong-arm a minerals deal with some country via a protection racket only to… tariff them?
Jesus Christ.
Unironically, depending on how the supply chain is arranged for your industry, it may actually be cheaper to move your manufacturing off shore and eat the tariff once instead of getting nickeled and dimed for every single item you need to assemble on shore. Hell, Vietnam already figured out you can ship Chinese products through to America as grey imports and skim off the top.
It is hard for me to articulate just how fucking stupid all of this is. It’s no small wonder how this guy bankrupted six casinos.
But hey, Art of the Deal, baby.
Unironically, depending on how the supply chain is arranged for your industry, it may actually be cheaper to move your manufacturing off shore and eat the tariff once instead of getting nickeled and dimed for every single item you need to assemble on shore.
And that’s not even accounting for forecasting, which is still necessary in the stupid-frail JIT approach. Noone will want to sign a long-term supply contract when they could get screwed by sudden tarrifs and the JIT people have to rely on luck to avoid subjecting customers to sticker-price whiplash.
It’s all just so fucking stupid.
Edit: Not sure what my auto-correct meant there. To be clear I was intending to state that JIT logistics is stupidly frail because it is unable to smooth out uncertainties in supply chains and a single distribution or price swing in a necessary component can result in the material costs of the product going so high that the business either has to sell at unpredictable prices, eat the difference, or set the base price higher and pocket the difference when favorable.
