Making it in Massachusetts
BARRY BLUESTONE: During World War II, Massachusetts had over 800,000 workers in manufacturing, about 43 percent of the workforce. It was actually a greater share of jobs in Massachusetts than in Michigan. After the war, of course, much of that employment declined, and then we had a sharp decline until the mini-computer boom [in the 1970s and 1980s]. For about 15 years, we were able to maintain our employment. After that we had a sharp, sharp decline, to the point where in the early part of the last decade, from 2000 to 2006, we were losing 15,000 manufacturing jobs a year. Nonetheless, today we still have a quarter of a million people in manufacturing. And, indeed, we’ve had about that level for the last two-and-a-half years, despite the Great Recession. In fact, this is one of the longest periods of time with no decline in manufacturing since the 1970s. Those 250,000 workers are all over the state. They’re in a range of industries. It’s not just high tech, it’s plastics extrusion, it’s metal cutting, metal bending, it’s medical devices. It’s still food, beverages, and, of course, aerospace, computers, and electronics. So it’s a broad-based industry. The way I like to say it is that there was no doubt that we’re going to lose a lot of manufacturing that simply couldn’t compete any longer in a global economy. What’s left here, however, is very competitive and very solid, and will survive for the long run and possibly even grow.
CW: You’ve studied manufacturing in the US for many years, and for much of that time hasn’t it been a pretty grim story?
BLUESTONE: I wrote a book in 1982 with my late colleague Ben Harrison, calledThe Deindustrialization of America. It was written by a kid who grew up in Detroit and a kid who grew up in Jersey City, and we were watching our cities fall apart. That was a sobering experience, and most of my academic work has been about the decline in manufacturing. When we started our first report on manufacturing in Massachusetts in 2007, I fully expected to find an industry that continued to decline and that might disappear in the next two decades. So I was more surprised than most with what we found. The research for the original “Staying Power” report was completed in November 2007. The report suggested that after decades of declining employment and shrinking of shared state output, manufacturing in Massachusetts was gaining strength. But only four weeks after the research for the report was completed, America slipped into a recession. By July 2008, the economy was shrinking and unemployment was rising rapidly. Led by the auto industry, manufacturing was in free fall. Our forecast of a manufacturing renaissance very soon looked way too sanguine. We considered offering the advice of [Saturday Night Live character] Emily Litella —”never mind”. When we did this new assessment, I wasn’t sure what we’d find. Employment had fallen much faster than we thought. The Great Recession in many parts of the country continues, though things are a little bit better here. Then we looked at all the data and we come to the conclusion that we were not that far off in 2008: Though manufacturing was hit hard in the meantime by a very bad recession, it has largely stabilized and there are some very healthy signs about its future.
CW: There was a real shake-out, though, that occurred at the time of the recession.
BLUESTONE: Absolutely. It’s been a continuous shake-out with the exception of that mini-computer boom.
CW: You wrote in the new report that the manufacturing industry has not only survived the recession, but it’s in a better position today in some ways to prosper than in 2007. What’s that based on?
BLUESTONE: We’ve had tremendous improvements in technology. The firms that have survived are using the latest technology and are creating state-of-the-art products. Those products not only have a market here but, increasingly, a national and international market. And so they’re in a good competitive position, both nationally and internationally.
CW: So in some ways we’re in a strong position because there’s been kind of a Darwinian culling of the herd in manufacturing?
BLUESTONE: Exactly. Those who couldn’t make it, didn’t. The report says if we had continued to decline at the rate taking place from 2000 to 2006, the last manufacturing job in the state would disappear in the spring of 2025 or something like that. That’s not going happen.
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