Actually Skills Do Pay The Bills

If the argument and the article were strictly limited to a specific skill set suchas Mazak VMC, you would be correct. But, the storyline is more general than that and thus the article does apply. In our area the entry level wage for fast food and fab shop or entry machinist is within a buck. So unless you are motivated and have someone paint you a picture of the path to success, why work hard when you can just show up and have essentially the same result?
The other general point that you are missing is the money went to less useful functions like wall street finance instead of engineering and manufacturing, if the money comes back so will the better talent.
You also appear to believe that the intrinsic value of creation overcomes the fact that I can support myself, now, much better on the fast food manager wage than I can for the next 3 or 4 years on the entry level machining wage. Especially since your first shot is likely to be a general shop till you prove you can do something, not your precision machine shop. Finally, your remark of the short-term inelasticity while correct misses the point, the finace boys didn’t manage to screw us up in a few years and it won’t turn around in a few years. But, until it pays substantially better than fast food or big box retail only those of us that are true believers are going to do the work. The hours are long, it’s hot, it’s cold, it’s heavy, it’s not respected, so unless there is a carrot to draw in the people we need they aren’t going to come, and the most universal carrot is the dollar.

I would offer that the two examples given for comparison are difficult to compare. Having a very close involvement with machinists in my engineering and operations career period and an up-close observer of the challenges of managing fast-food personnel in my sales and consulting, the more difficult job is managing at McDonalds’. Todays Millenium generation and the pressures of fast delivery of the meal calls for resourceful people and situation managers. While I may curse because I miss cutting a radius correctly due to a dull cutting tool; I would not be allowed to curse an employee that cannot follow simple directions and does not care. People skills are, in my opinion, much harder to find in job candidates.

I don’t necessarily take exception to any of the viewpoints expressed here and respectfully suggest that you are all right to some degree. My concern for any young men and women who might be aspiring to embark on a career in fast food management would be to consider the future opportunity’s available. We are already beginning to see table top kiosks designed to reduce or perhaps even eliminate the need for waiter and waitress staff in forward thinking food establishments. The mention of the use of robotic devices on the looming horizon designed to replace the cook staff in the kitchens. Personally I still have a hard time getting my head wrapped around a robot cooking my steak at the neighborhood Ruth’s Cris, Hyde Park or Mortons, but mass producing burgers and fries at the local McDonalds………. I appreciate the need for people skills when managing these establishments but how much people skill would be needed to manage a bank of robots? In this type of environment I would certainly envision that programmers and maintenance personal might be a more desirable position but who knows what the future holds. I for the most part grew up in the skilled trades manufacturing environment and would suggest that the position that I currently hold is far more lucrative and secure than a fast food management position. Sure it took years of hard work and dedication to get here but what is the down side of that? I have no personal disregard for those individuals out there that aspire to be a fast food manager; I just don’t know a whole lot of young folks who profess “I want to be a manger at McDonalds when I grow up”. If this is truly your calling in life then good for you and you should pursue it. As for my college aged Engineering student, he will be working in the machine shop this summer while on break, and having lunch with his friends at McDonalds.

Ok, i read the NY Times article, and it reminds me of the recession at the start of the 80’s. Our U.S. screw machine industry was being driven into the ground by competition from the Japanese, who had found and purchased the 300 Tornos 6 spindle automatics that existed back then, for the simple reason that those machines had a 1 1/2 second cycle time. So, we couldn’t compete with our Japanese -made single spindle automatics and ancient Brown and Sharp, Acme Gridley and Davenport screw machines. President Reagan then turned the Japanese’ high tariffs on our goods around, and put extremely high tariffs on THEM. Thus, saving an entire industry here in the USA. This information is from the Trade Journal for the screw machine trade. The average wage for a “skilled” machinist in the 90’s was $15/hr, both in Japan and here in the U.S. I was making $19/hr as a setup man in 1989. My wage has been around $22/hr since 1993, at almost every place i worked (job shops, Medical Device and Dental Implant companies). So, with the increase in the cost of living every year, i think i have been “going backwards” for quite a while. And i totally agree that a skilled machinist won’t work for $10/hr, perhaps Mr. Isbister’s Gen Met Co. is a sign of the times? I seem to recall that the previously poverty-stricken Chinese are now making the big bucks, buying new cars and all, due to THEIR economy being so good. Way to go, Wally World and other co.s selling us cheap chinese junk. The American floor worker has always been the best in the (although Germany has a terrific emphasis on preparing their students well for real jobs). In fact, Germany could care less about the world economies; they are doing just fine. Perhaps we could try to emulate their job training programs. Here, the greedy corporations just don’t get it (except AIG, of course). Sorry if the truth hurts, but when the old guys are gone, the high paying jobs will probably be gone, too. Truthfully, i would work for $10/hr just to get started in a good career (knowing i would make triple that in the future), but only Engineers can count on that today. Machinists seem to be going the way of American Mfg. in general. It seems to correlate to the disappearing middle class. Maybe i should have taken up politics, they seem to be doing alright! Oh, and another thing; half of Congress are lawyers, what does THAT tell you!