Recycling the Workforce

We have 94 million working-age US citizens who are not in the workforce. Some of them are moms with newborns and small children, who are able to stay home and live on one income. Most of these folks have simply been unable to find jobs they can land. These are the ones that need to be recycled. They need to be smart about what jobs they go after. Also, companies need to look for places to locate that have compatible workers. Rural counties were the locations of choice for many of these manufacturing companies, because the workforce had skills working with farm equipment and needed a good job in town to make ends meet. Inner cities are obvious locations for companies, particularly food processors.

For decades, the US has admitted too many immigrants, who have taken jobs from US citizens and kept wage rates from rising. This excessive immigration policy has been in effect even while jobs are being off-shored. The 150,000 jobs created every month were soaked up by the 150,000 immigrants we admitted.  That left no jobs for the 150,000 students we graduated every month (on average).

If we can increase job creation to 250,000 jobs and reduce immigration by 2/3rds to 50,000 per month, we will be able to slowly lift our 94 million adults into the workforce at the rate of 50,000 jobs per month. That would increase jobs by 600,000 per year and should be able to reduce the 94 million by a half-million a year. If we can do better, we can restore jobs faster. We need to end the UN refugee program in the US completely and immediately.

We have millions of US citizens over age 65 who need to continue to work in their fields part-time. Many of these “retirees” have experience in manufacturing, but lost these jobs as companies off-shored their operations. Reestablishing manufacturing in the US needs these experienced people at all levels. 

Manufacturing jobs range from light, lower paid jobs to higher paying, certified production equipment technicians who can fix and maintain equipment. These technicians should be certified on specific pieces of automated production equipment.

There are two results to watch for.  One is how many US high school and college students do you see beginning to work in retail and other minimum wage jobs.  The next is how many US college grads are moving from minimum wage to salaried professional jobs. This requires the movement of low paid adults to other jobs in manufacturing and services. It also requires colleges to guide students to degrees that are in demand for employers. This requires the de-politicization of college campuses by replacing college professors who do not teach employable skills.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader