How Trump's Fight Against Layoffs Could Still Lead to Fewer Jobs
Yes, the hiring cycle in American factories is broken. But the president-elect’s solution could hasten the dawn of automation.
The manufacturing sector is vital to America’s self-image as a hardy, industrious nation, even though it employs less than 10 percent of the U.S. workforce. Perhaps that’s why it was so painful to watch the bottom fall out. When factory employment plummeted in the last decade, dropping by a third between 2000 and 2010, a cornerstone of the American economy was demoted to a mere cinderblock.
Then came Donald Trump and his 35-percent tariff. The logic of president-elect’s plan, intoxicating in its simplicity, can be summed up on a good-sized cocktail napkin: I will punish anyone who moves American jobs overseas; therefore, America will
