On Sun, 27 Jan 2008 11:19:45 -0500, Ed Huntress wrote:

An article in today's NYT...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/ma...n-lede-t.html?
ref=magazine

...finally gives some concrete answers to the question of what
manufacturing workers should be retraining for, if they're expecting to
work in a growing sector of the economy:

"Why do presidential candidates touting their concern for the economy
pose with factory workers rather than with ballet troupes? After all,
the U.S. now has more choreographers (16,340) than metal-casters
(14,880), according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. More people make
their livings shuffling and dealing cards in casinos (82,960) than
running lathes (65,840), and there are almost three times as many
security guards (1,004,130) as machinists (385,690). Whereas 30 percent
of Americans worked in manufacturing in 1950, fewer than 15 percent do
now. The economy as politicians present it is a folkloric thing."

So, the answer is clear: It's time to learn to dance or shuffle.
Practice those pirouettes, and always deal from the top of the deck,
ya'll.

http://www.wikihow.com/Do-a-Pirouette

Bleh.

OTOH, those 15 percent are more likely to be good at what they do. I bet
a lot of those mill operators in the '50s just knew how to work at the
level of "turn the big handle over there until the number 55 is on top"
where the ones that are left can not only build to print just fine, but
hand you back a print with redlines to make the part better or less
expensive to build.

There's another thing to consider, if I'm not mistaken: The federal
agency that tracks these things classifies ones job as a "service job" if
one isn't actually putting stuff together with ones own hands -- so if
you hold a job as an engineer, draftsman, planner, or any other vital job
that requires practical experience and knowledge but doesn't have you
touching the machines, then you're not considered to be "manufacturing"
anything.

That 15% of folks who are actually running the machines and bolting
things together aren't standing out in the forest picking raw materials
off the trees, and there aren't any shy woodland creatures carrying the
finished product to market -- so "manufacturing" is bigger than the feds
make out.

--
Tim Wescott
Control systems and communications consulting
http://www.wescottdesign.com

Need to learn how to apply control theory in your embedded system?
"Applied Control Theory for Embedded Systems" by Tim Wescott
Elsevier/Newnes, http://www.wescottdesign.com/actfes/actfes.html