On September 7, Foreign Affairs published an article by Institute vice president Susan Houseman on the decline of manufacturing employment in the United States. Says Houseman:
"As I discuss in a recent paper, although automation is occurring in manufacturing, as it is in other sectors of the economy, the evidence does not support the idea that automation was the main cause of the sudden decline in manufacturing employment after 2000. Although it’s difficult to precisely pin down what was to blame, a large body of research suggests that economists and pundits are wrong to so quickly dismiss trade and to blame machines."
Read "Is Automation Really to Blame for Lost Manufacturing Jobs? What the Conventional Wisdom Gets Wrong."