First the good news, workers continue to lose ground to inflation:
"The US labor market stayed resilient last month while wage gains cooled, raising hopes that the economy may dodge a recession and the Federal Reserve will further slow its aggressive campaign of interest-rate hikes...."—Bloomberg via Financial Advisor Mag, Jan. 6
And the bad news, from Asia Times, January 5:
US workers not ready for next-gen high-tech jobs
US manufacturing’s next generation is high-tech but America’s workers lack the tools and mentality to get the job done
The US Navy is beginning to build 12 top-of-the-line nuclear submarines, with the first one scheduled to be completed by 2027. But it is missing a critical ingredient: many of an estimated 50,000 skilled workers to get the job done. It also lacks a reliable supply chain and the infrastructure to build the massive vessels.
Across America, industries are facing enormous supply chain delays, worker shortages and places to build due to several decades of offshoring and deemphasizing manufacturing research, education and training in the US.
For example, the textile industry is experiencing a 20% worker shortage, and the metal fabrication industry expects a 400,000 worker shortage by 2024. The first decade of the 21st century alone saw US manufacturing jobs decline by one-third, falling from 17 million in 2000 to below 12 million in 2010.
I am a manufacturing researcher who works on ways to solve a key part of American manufacturing challenges: preparing workers to leverage today’s technology while advancing tomorrow’s technology. A new workforce skilled in the design and operation of new and existing machine tools is needed to ensure America has enough workers to fill jobs.
But these are not your mother’s machines. They are networked for improved reliability and data collection, programmable for automation, and can shape metal alloys and composite materials into critical products such as medical implants, turbines for airplane engines and molds for plastic bottles.
From boom to bust....
....MUCH MORE
On second thought, maybe the good news isn't that good, excepting maybe for folks who really, really need a Fed pivot to avoid being exposed as leveraged beta charlatans.
