From the assembly lines of Detroit’s auto factories to the textile mills of rural North Carolina, factories across the country are shutting their doors. Jobs in the once booming manufacturing sector have disappeared. Close to 2.5 million of them, in the last two years. And they’ve gone to Mexico, to China and to India.
Many workers, who spent their entire lives on the line, earning good salaries and enjoying health benefits and pensions, are now out of work, and out of prospects. Economists will tell you those jobs aren’t coming back, but no one seems to agree on what, if anything, can be done to stop the bloodletting and to make sure that the manufacturing jobs that remain here, stay that way.
Guests:
Charles Saunders, President, Saunders Thread Company, Gastonia, North Carolina;
Barry Bluestone, Professor of Political Economy, and Director, Center for Urban and Regional Policy, Northeastern University;
Steve Dobbins, CEO, Carolina Mills, Maiden, North Carolina