揭開美國制造業(yè)復(fù)蘇的假象
????不少美國人正在為制造業(yè)的復(fù)蘇歡呼雀躍,奧巴馬總統(tǒng)儼然已經(jīng)成為這支啦啦隊(duì)的總隊(duì)長。他在工廠車間發(fā)表演講稱,制造業(yè)脆弱的好轉(zhuǎn)跡象理應(yīng)為他贏得第二個(gè)任期。“只要我們能制造出比世界其他國家更好的東西,美國就將會(huì)展現(xiàn)出一派蓬勃發(fā)展的景象,”本月初,他在弗吉尼亞州一家勞斯萊斯轎車(Rolls-Royce)制造廠對聽眾們說。 ????但一份最新出爐的報(bào)告稱,近期那些大肆宣揚(yáng)制造業(yè)顯露復(fù)興跡象的新聞報(bào)道掩蓋了一個(gè)更加嚴(yán)峻的現(xiàn)實(shí):過去10年,美國制造業(yè)遭受了一場災(zāi)難性的衰退,如今的狀況要比大多數(shù)經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家愿意承認(rèn)的狀況還要糟糕得多。 ????周二,這份由技術(shù)政策智庫信息技術(shù)與創(chuàng)新基金會(huì)(the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation)發(fā)布的報(bào)告顯示,以創(chuàng)造的就業(yè)機(jī)會(huì)來衡量,制造業(yè)在過去10年的表現(xiàn)堪稱史上最糟,總計(jì)共裁減了570萬個(gè)就業(yè)崗位。如果按照在全部工作崗位中占據(jù)的份額來衡量,這一輪衰退甚至比制造業(yè)在大蕭條(Great Depression)期間遭受的打擊更加嚴(yán)重。 ????二戰(zhàn)后的數(shù)次衰退中,大多數(shù)時(shí)候,制造業(yè)往往都是經(jīng)濟(jì)復(fù)蘇的引領(lǐng)者,這個(gè)經(jīng)濟(jì)部門喪失的就業(yè)機(jī)會(huì)通常都能在相對較短的時(shí)間內(nèi)失而復(fù)得。但不同的是,制造業(yè)在過去10年消失的絕大多數(shù)就業(yè)機(jī)會(huì)現(xiàn)在依然沒有得到恢復(fù);而在大衰退(Great Recession)期間,這一數(shù)據(jù)還不到14%。 ????技術(shù)與創(chuàng)新基金會(huì)使用這些數(shù)據(jù)來證明,美國制造業(yè)目前正面臨結(jié)構(gòu)性衰退。他們認(rèn)為,各個(gè)流派的經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家和專家一直在粉飾太平——這些人不僅采用的錯(cuò)誤數(shù)據(jù)不但低估了制造業(yè)當(dāng)前面臨的挑戰(zhàn)之嚴(yán)重程度,而且秉持一種拙劣的理念:勞動(dòng)力的變化可以用生產(chǎn)力的提高等一些變量來解釋,這些因素同樣對我們的競爭對手發(fā)揮著類似的不利影響。 ????“就算我們還不能做出正確的決策,但我們首先至少得理解現(xiàn)實(shí),”技術(shù)與創(chuàng)新基金會(huì)總裁羅布?阿特金森說?!拔覀冋媾R的競爭力挑戰(zhàn)遠(yuǎn)大于我們現(xiàn)有的認(rèn)識?!?/p> ????這份報(bào)告稱,那些戴玫瑰色眼鏡的樂天派所秉持的一項(xiàng)關(guān)鍵論斷其實(shí)并不正確,他們認(rèn)為,效率的提高使得用更少的工人生產(chǎn)更多貨物成為可能,這最終是制造業(yè)實(shí)力的一項(xiàng)標(biāo)志。問題是,經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家一直在使用政府發(fā)布的數(shù)據(jù)來衡量美國工廠產(chǎn)出的增長,并從中找到了大量好消息:比如,如今1個(gè)工人干的活放在1950年需要5個(gè)工人來做。 ????但技術(shù)與創(chuàng)新基金會(huì)認(rèn)為,這些數(shù)據(jù)所反映的情況無法充分解釋日益全球化的供應(yīng)鏈。剔除這些變化后,該基金會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)在過去10年間,美國制造業(yè)的產(chǎn)出其實(shí)下降了11%——除大蕭條之外,這是制造業(yè)絕無僅有的一次。 ????雖然許多經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家認(rèn)為制造業(yè)的衰退無關(guān)緊要,或者說,它實(shí)際上預(yù)示著美國正在邁向以服務(wù)為導(dǎo)向的“創(chuàng)意”經(jīng)濟(jì)時(shí)代,但阿特金森的研究團(tuán)隊(duì)認(rèn)為,制造業(yè)可以對整個(gè)經(jīng)濟(jì)的其它部門產(chǎn)生一種無可比擬的連鎖反應(yīng):我們每失去1個(gè)制造類工作,就會(huì)相應(yīng)地?fù)p失2.5個(gè)其他門類的工作。 |
????President Obama is becoming the cheerleader-in-chief for the manufacturing recovery, hitting factory floors to make his case that the fragile turnaround should earn him a second term. "America thrives when we build things better than the rest of the world," he told the crowd at a Rolls-Royce plant in Virginia earlier this month. ????But a new report argues that recent headlines touting a nascent manufacturing renaissance belie a grimmer reality: The sector suffered a cataclysmic decline over the last decade and is in much worse shape than most economists will admit. ????The report -- out today from the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, a technology policy think tank -- says that measured by job creation, manufacturers registered their worst performance in history over the last decade, shedding 5.7 million jobs. As a share of total jobs, that decline is worse even than the one manufacturing suffered during the Great Depression. ????And unlike the periods following most post-World War II recessions, when manufacturing helped lead the recovery and jobs lost in the sector were restored in relatively short order, the vast majority of manufacturing jobs that disappeared over the last ten years haven't come back -- in the case of the Great Recession, that number is less than 14%. ????The group uses the numbers to make the case that American manufacturing is now facing a structural decline. It's a situation they argue that economists and pundits across the spectrum have papered over, owing both to faulty data that has understated the severity of the challenges facing the sector and a misbegotten belief that changes in the labor force can be chalked up to market dynamics -- like productivity gains -- that are taking similar tolls on our competitors. ????"We need to at least understand reality before we can make the right decisions," says Rob Atkinson, president of the ITIF. "We have a competitiveness challenge that's bigger than what we thought." ????The report argues that the key claim of the rose-colored glasses crowd -- that increased efficiency has made it possible to produce more with fewer workers, which is ultimately a sign of the sector's strength -- is in fact wrong. The problem is that economists have been using government data to measure the growth in the output of American factories and finding plenty of good news: it takes one worker today, for example, to do the work of five in 1950. ????But ITIF holds that the numbers telling that story don't adequately account for an increasingly globalized supply chain. Adjusting for those changes, the group found manufacturing output actually fell by 11% over the last decade, the only time outside of the Great Depression when the sector notched a dip. ????While many economists say manufacturing's decline doesn't matter -- or that it actually augurs progress toward a service-oriented, "ideas" economy -- Atkinson's group hopes to make the case that the sector has an unrivaled ripple effect throughout the rest of the economy: for every manufacturing job we lose, 2.5 others go with it. |