06/30/2025
A topic we need to talk about as a nation.
Last week, Steve Rattner made the point with one of his popular charts on Morning Joe that there is a sizable problem with Donald Trump’s tariff wars as it relates to manufacturing jobs. The problem has been reported in The Wall Street Journal, conversations about it have aired on CNBC, and NPR has conducted long-form interviews about it. Though a red, white, and blue narrative can be created about bringing manufacturing jobs back to America, there is that nagging, pesky fact that too many of the MAGA world simply refuse to understand. Such jobs are not returning anytime soon. Perhaps, never.
By now, it is a familiar refrain from Trump’s economic meandering statements that we should look forward to the day again when factories are lit, smokestacks billow steam or smoke, and workers in shifts go in and out of the front gates. He claims that one of the results of his tariff wars is that manufacturing jobs will be coming ‘home’. But once the folksy black and white images have given way to reality’s light, with facts too large to ignore, it becomes very clear that there aren’t enough workers to fill the manufacturing jobs we already have.
As of April 2025, the U.S. Labor Department reported that the U.S. manufacturing sector had over 381,000 unfilled positions, with durable goods manufacturing alone accounting for 245,000 of those vacancies. Despite a post-pandemic rebound, the industry is continuing to grapple with a persistent labor shortage. The Manufacturing Institute projects that by 2030, the U.S. could face a shortfall of 2.1 million manufacturing workers due to a widening skills gap. Somewhere between deporting workers because the Republican Party has a problem with Brown-skinned people, and the Trump White House cutting everything under the sun to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy, which includes education programming for those in need of skills, it becomes a bit easier to see why the jobs gap is to grow much wider.
This isn’t just a numbers game, but as many commentators have argued, it is a structural crisis. The workforce is aging, and younger generations are less inclined to pursue factory work. The work is mostly dirty, repetitive, and exceedingly boring. In short, many younger workers do not want to be saddled with such a job. As noted last week on NPR, modern manufacturing has evolved beyond the reach of many job seekers without the skills required for the jobs being offered. So the obvious question needs to be asked, but more importantly, answered. Let us just pretend Trump’s policies succeed in luring factories back to the U.S., who will be heading to the shop floor to do them?
One of Trump’s executive orders aimed to overhaul federal workforce training programs and expand apprenticeships. But critics on the radio correctly pointed out the flaws in that plan; those ideas are too little, and too late. The administration’s approach leans heavily on rhetoric and tariffs, rather than addressing the root causes of the labor shortage in our nation. We need an infusion of funding for skills-based education, as well as investments to assist workers so they can afford to move to new jobs. We must find solutions for affordable housing and deal with the challenging expense of childcare. Even if those economic burdens were lessened, there is still the very real hurdle of overcoming a cultural shift away from blue-collar work.
In short, Trump’s manufacturing revival is a solution in search of a workforce. Until we confront the deeper issues, as I noted above, ranging from skills training, labor participation, and demographic shifts away from the factory floor, the promise of “Made in America” will remain more slogan than strategy. For now, MAGA is fine with slogans. The rest of the nation, however, is coming to understand why manufacturing jobs are never returning to our shores.
Last week, Steve Rattner made the point with one of his popular charts on Morning Joe that there is a sizable problem with Donald Trump’s tariff wars as it relates to manufacturing jobs. The …