Fairly confident prices went up. Less competition from U.S. suppliers.

exactly the prices didn't go down the increase profffit went the the corporate bonus pot.

same as Union jobs so many hear don't like and blame for the high cost of trucks. yet can't explain why tricks made in Mexico and Non union Toyota trucks are not any less expensive. Nope it has to be those union wages making the prices high.

The disconnect is real. Union or not I would rather have the jobs in the US putting Americans to work and being in control of our production especially critical things like steel, lead, fuel, micro chips. It's the only way to reduce supply chain interruptions And be able to build a war machine like we did in WW 2. Will be nice to get back headed in that direction.

They will be made into private jobs, maybe not things like park rangers etc, when your National Parks and such are sold off. lol

And they won't go down with those jobs moving back to the U.S., either. But at least those jobs will be here, and that is a good thing.

Lost in all this is what a government job WAS.
Growing up it was well known that most government jobs were on the lower end of the pay scale. Trade off was if you took them you got health benefits, job security, certain pension beyond SS and a few more things. Mailmen, field people for forest service, fish and wildlife, road maint, teachers … huge etc. I never knew a teacher back then who didn’t have a summer gig to make more. Those of us who went for instance into construction didn’t have the job security, had to adjust for insurance needs, and always had looming uncontrollable layoffs to deal with. It pretty well leveled the playing field private versus government employment.

What makes these government workers who dont do anything of substance, or provide product or service of valu beyond cost to
the taxpayers any different than those with the ability to work but are living off welfare?
When a small company can come and smoke the massive NASA cow, when private schools can put the government education behemoth to shame and there are many more examples, it’s long overdue the government face the elephant in the room. Repercussions. They work and are needed.

My only wish is there is not a more cutting higher up the government food chain. I think that is coming tho.
Maybe those who are being laid off can learn more and work for these returning companies. Glass half full.

Osky

Ok honest question. Do you guys have enough us citizens to run all these factories that are coming. Lots I'm sure are lower paying crappy jobs so is your unemployment rate that high? It all sounds good in thereoy

Yes but the growing pains are going to be just that, painful physically and mentally.

Yes. Hopefully a lot of government people will be looking for work.
It’s a lot easier for companies to meet a higher living wage for competent employees when the tax burdens are lower
There is a steel fab shop across from my commercial building with a sign out for help, starting at 26.00 per hr and benefits.
52k plus benefits doesn’t seem too crappy for a start?

Osky

You worry about Sackscratchawan,,we can take care of ourself here.

Looks like it! Lol

Its a yes and no type of answer that could take days of discussion but I'll try to make a quick stab at it from my perpective.

The people exist but we have developed a fairly deep culture in this country that will make it difficult to gear up readily and perhaps not at all. Most significant manufacturing facilities in US are already chronically short staffed and we still require a mix of highly skilled to fairly low skilled staff to perform the work. Just looking at that can get us into the weeds in the conversation because things like long term investment and staffing have taken a backseat in last few years as many employers have been in the wait and see stance but even putting that to the side most big operations can't find a suitable workforce when they go looking (particularly in the post covid era). We put decades of emphasis on higher education without enough respect for other careers which turned alot of folks away from the blue collar/manufacturing work which really is the foundation of the post WW2 US economy that created our middle class and things like the concept of retirement. We like to think there is an easy button to hit and go backwards 50 years in time to the days before US consistently ran a trade deficit but its just not that simple or quick.

However, if you listen to Musk and Trump, part of the downsizing of the federal staff is with a hope to push folks back into the private sector; particularly the younger generation. Probably the biggest short term bang for the buck would be to divest the government ranks of the senior higher wage earners that are not at the peak of performance but they cant immediately pull that off and it takes skilled managers to even work thru those type of performance requirements over many months which isnt something that is in the typical government manager tool kit (in fact its lacking in private sector management as well). Looks to me that the initial round of layoffs is to show the country that they are serious and trying to make change with hope it'll lead to other bigger things longer term. I'd like to see some of the more "critical" type of US industries take a bigger role in the world once again while providing the US with a certain safety net. But even if we can staff facilities there are still going to be lots of situations where it simply doesnt make sense for a company to maintain a huge presence in the US. Companies exist to make money for the owners/shareholders; employing people etc is just a byproduct. And we need to remember that in this day and age a big bunch of companies that started doing business in US and continue to have a name brand presence here are now owned by foreign investors with a wide range of interests that may conflict with what the US wants.

Ultimately the wealth of nations has been built on harnessing its resources particularly if those can be used to produce goods. Providing a significant level of services at both the govt and private level is what happens when nations have succeeded in harvesting/producing and in the process become fatter and wealthier----we are just repeating our predecessors paths. Both govt and private sector service jobs can be important job creators and contributors to the economy but if there is nothing also being produced at the end of the day all we are doing is shifting dollars around within the nation. When the government starts producing too many of those jobs and essentially transferring the wealth well thats something we more expect to see happen overseas.

Labor participation rate is a little over 62 percent.

I think we can find some people.