American Manufacturing Productivity Plunges in Decade-Long First, Tech Slump and Automation Gap Blamed
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Productivity in American manufacturing has been declining since 2011, the first decade-long fall in available data and likely in history.
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Computers and electronics, which drove big productivity gains in the 1990s and 2000s, have seen slowing growth since 2011 and account for a third of the overall manufacturing slowdown.
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Fourteen of nineteen manufacturing sub-sectors have seen productivity declines in the 2010s, from machinery to textiles, not just tech.
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America lags behind global peers in adoption of automation like robots per worker, ranking 7th of 15 countries, which may contribute to the productivity slump.
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It's unclear what will reverse the trend, though industrial policy advocates hope subsidies for chips and green tech could boost manufacturing productivity again.