In Business
as usual” (Nov. 9, 2017) I looked at, por rather down on, the new economic development initiative
known as the Sangamon County Project. There is more to be said.
The focus of the effort, as ever, is on attracting makers of goods, not sellers or movers. The obsession with manufacturing as the centerpiece
of economic development has warped state policy and it infects local efforts as
well. This is curious. Manufacturing employment as a share of population has
been dropping in every rich country, and while jobs in that sector pay well
enough they pay nowhere near as good as they used to be, relatively. Also, if a
job in a plant is so desirable, why don’t more Illinoisans want them? Younger
people refuse to train themselves for factory jobs or even craft careers
apparently, as national labor shortages in both sectors make clear.
Nor is work in manufacturing especially stable. I described
Rochelle, Illinois, in that column as a rare success story. One reasons was the
opening in 2012 of the new U.S.
headquarters and the $35 million passenger rail car facility of Nippon Sharyo. The plan was built with more
than $10 million in state and local investment and incentives, including tax
credits and infrastructure improvements. Since my column came out, Nippon
Sharyo lost the fat contract from the California Department of Transportation
to build high-speed Amtrak passenger
trains because of quality complaints.
If
economic development advocates are worried about jobs for workers abandoned by
changes in the local economy—and aldermen certainly are—they would do better to
quit chasing factories and figure out what to do for the thousands of
people who will be left idle over the
next ten to twenty years as bricks-and-mortar retailing becomes obsolete.
Like I said—why the obsession with manufacturing?
This article appears in Nov 23-29, 2017.
