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From the Congressional Research Service: “The past few years have seen important changes in the nature of manufacturing work. A steadily smaller proportion of manufacturing workers is involved in physical production processes, while larger shares are engaged in managerial and professional work. These changes are reflected in increasing skill requirements for manufacturing workers and severely diminished opportunities for workers without education beyond high school. Even if increased manufacturing output leads to additional employment in the manufacturing sector, it is likely to generate little of the routine production work historically performed by workers with lower education levels.”  More …

“Donald Trump may have convinced Carrier not to move its Indianapolis furnace plant to Mexico. But the company is still shipping about 300 of its jobs to Mexico right before Christmas.” More …

“In his 1998 book Turbo-Capitalism, Edward Luttwak gave what is still the most succinct and accurate reading of the new system’s economic consequences. ‘It enriches industrializing poor countries, impoverishes the semi-affluent majority in rich countries, and greatly adds to the incomes of the top 1 percent on both sides who are managing the arbitrage.’ Left unexplained was what had happened to make trade suddenly produce consequences so widely divergent from those it had produced for centuries.” More …

“Once-bustling shopping malls and department stores are now empty as millions of Americans do their shopping online through businesses that have warehouses but don’t operate storefronts. Trump’s muted response to the retail apocalypse shows which workers count in Trump’s America.” More.

“Parts suppliers in the American South compete for low-margin orders against suppliers in Mexico and Asia. They promise delivery schedules they can’t possibly meet and face ruinous penalties if they fall short. Employees work ungodly hours, six or seven days a week, for months on end. Pay is low, turnover is high, training is scant, and safety is an afterthought, usually after someone is badly hurt. Many of the same woes that typify work conditions at contract manufacturers across Asia now bedevil parts plants in the South.”