Actually we need a series of them. The first one would be global, the total worldwide number of manufacturing jobs. The second would be a series of counters of manufacturing jobs in the US. You would have the total number of jobs, the number of jobs that we would have if we kept even in our percentage of worldwide manufacturing jobs and how much higher or lower we're trending from neutral.
If (as I think is true) manufacturing jobs are shrinking worldwide, we should be losing jobs right along with everybody else, and in fact we're losing fewer than our fair share of manufacturing jobs, then not only would the counters illustrate that, they would put a stake in the idea that we're in some sort of manufacturing crisis caused by poor policy at the national level. I could probably cobble together such counters. The necessary script isn't that complicated. The only problem is I don't know where to get the raw data. Any economists out there want to help me out? If you don't see an update at the bottom thanking someone for stepping up to the plate, I still need the data.
Posted by TMLutas at April 12, 2004 08:03 AM