As the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting continues in Davos, 瑞士, 本周, 关于全球贸易的讨论, 先进制造业的未来, and the Fourth 工业 Revolution are at an all-time high. In particular, the popular news media has been making a daily diet talking about the U.S. 与中国的贸易战.

Unfortunately, they are missing the real story: the potentially profound effects of 重新支撑 on U.S. 制造业和不断扩大的技能差距.

A few reports are seeing the fumes of the real story 但 miss the overall point. 新闻报道已经浮出水面 德国学徒计划的成功尤其是在制造业领域，以及美国经济如何在全球范围内保持增长.S. 政府正在评估类似的系统. 这至少指向了正确的方向. 2017年，唐纳德·特朗普总统签署了一项 行政命令 to double the amount of funds for apprenticeship programs, to $200 million, 但 some argue that the initiative is still a work in progress. A 越来越多的情绪 that “not everyone can be or wants to be a programmer in Silicon Valley” is gaining traction as well.

The real story is that 制造业 is coming back to first-world countries, 我们不知道如何填满这些新的, 更复杂的工作.

根据 “回流倡议”的一份报告, in 2017, companies announced 171,000 制造业 jobs brought to the U.S. from offshore (90% of the total number of 制造业 jobs added that year), up 52% from 2016; this brings the total number of “reshored” jobs to more than 576,自2010年制造业就业低点以来，美国就业人数减少了1000人.

事实证明, 2016 was the first year where net 制造业 job loss reversed with a total net addition of 30,000个工作岗位, 根据同一份报告. To put a finer point on the magnitude of staffing and organizing these new jobs, 据估计，仍有300万至400万美国人.S. 海外制造业岗位.

Many of these will return to modern factories near their markets.

为什么工作机会会回来

在我最近参加的一次世界经济论坛会议上, 几个国家都同意这一点, 包括越南, 现在明白了这个结果，非常担心. These countries thought that as China priced and aged out, they would pick up the 制造业 mantle and reap its rewards.

The reality is, as technology removes more and more labor from the 制造业 process, the reason to seek cheaper labor overseas no longer makes sense. Manufacturing becomes very advanced with fewer higher-end jobs. While these jobs pay well—and there will be a fair number of them as a huge amount of 制造业 returns—that higher pay ends up being a rounding error on the total cost of production for any one company.

在20世纪80年代的某个时候，美国的经济正在衰退.S. decided that we had reached the pinnacle of 制造业, 这项技术不会进一步发展, and the only logical next step was to move production overseas. This erroneous conclusion ended up being a Marshall Plan for the world as we installed state-of-the-art factories—living classrooms—in far-flung places. As these companies devolved into commoditized brands or the laggards continued to squeeze remaining value from aging plants and equipment, the investment world began trading these companies like postage stamps.

Of course, these sweeping conclusions don’t apply to every company or industry. There are many companies that stayed the course and continue to innovate in consumer products, 粮食生产, 战略制造, 和能源. What does thread through these companies—Corteva Agriscience (formerly DowDuPont) and Schlumberger are just two examples—was a need to stay physically close to their markets.

As it now becomes advantageous to be near your market as overall labor costs will no longer be a factor, the peers of these companies in other sectors need to take a page from their more strategic brethren.

吸引下一代产业工人

单独, companies need to embrace the concept of 重新支撑 and start designing their factory of the future now. They also need to consider what technologies will augment these workers to quickly deliver the precise and demanding work needed to staff their next-generation factory.

回流的一个巨大影响, 我们已经看到了吗, is that advanced 制造业 jobs are increasingly becoming sophisticated jobs that contri但e to the widening skills gap; the 2018 Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute 技能差距和工作学习的未来 估计有2.4 million positions will remain unfilled between 2018 and 2028, 潜在的经济影响是2美元.5万亿年.

他们可能并不都是从高学历开始的, 但, 在现代工厂里, 工人编程数控机床, 制度, 和机器人, 调整高级自动化, 并使用复杂的软件. Not only are these advanced jobs, they are cool jobs that command strong salaries.

集体, 制造业 and industrial work in general will need to market these advances to convince generations Y and Z that these jobs are cool not by overselling them, 而是让它们变得很酷.

在先进制造业中, the ability to manipulate atoms is becoming almost as easy as the ability to manipulate bytes. This appeals to a generation of makers and doers that have already been unleashed in most first-world societies. What we aren’t doing is connecting the dots between those who like to work with their hands—and who try to find an outlet for this in their side gigs—and these great new, well-paying day jobs that could give them an amazing sense of fulfillment.

未来的统治者

We’ve really missed the point giving the trade war so many column inches. While the cost of aluminum may sting now if you are importing, it’s an effect of the death throes of a model of production from the end of the last century. Manufacturing and industrial companies that rule the future will reshore.