this post was submitted on 11 May 2025
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Canada has more manufacturing jobs per capita than the US. (lemmy.ca)
submitted 2 days ago by Daryl@lemmy.ca to c/canada@lemmy.ca
38 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Is that even possible? If so, it is an eye opener for what is happening in the American economy and what is causing the MAGA movement.

Let's follow the evidence.

According to this article https://www.npr.org/2025/05/09/nx-s1-5375146/trump-tariffs-factory-jobs-nostalgia?

there are 12.7 million manufacturing jobs in America, down from an all-time high of 19.6 million in 1979.

According to this data base,

https://www.statista.com/statistics/437763/employment-level-in-canada-by-industry/

there are 1.8 million manufacturing jobs in Canada. Applying the standard 1-to-10 ratio (population ratio) that means scaled up proportionate to population Canada would have the equivalent of 18 million manufacturing jobs, just short of America's all time high of almost 50 years ago, let alone the current US job rate.

That caught me completely off guard. Puts a whole new perspective on what Trump is saying about the dire state of the US. Even compared to Canada, the US is in the pits.

Here is another data bomb. One quarter of those US manufacturing jobs are held by immigrants. Not sure WHAT to make of that one.

America does have a problem regarding manufacturing jobs. But tariffs certainly are NOT the solution. If Canada can out-perform the US per capita without the trade barriers of tariffs, exactly what does that say about the condition America is in?

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[–] healthetank@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Pesky things like labour laws and workers rights, as well as stronger unions, tend to get in the way of important metrics like GDP/hr.

[–] Hacksaw@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Not really, it's just that no one invests in Canada. I don't have a full story as to why, but the data points directly to a low investment rate into technology in Canada. It's super shitty and I'm sure someone is profiting from the money that would have been invested.

[–] healthetank@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 days ago

Yeah - as an example. FIL works white collar job in a company with plants in 3 Ontario cities and 1 in Michigan doing CNC milling for huge parts (like oilsands trucks size). His company is unionized on the Caanda factories, and ununionized on the US side. They bought new CNC equipment, and it went to the US factory BECAUSE they can push employees more there. The union forces things like breaks into the schedule regardless of project status while the workers are forced to work through breaks on the US side regularly, or stay after hours to finish.

Thus the US production is better (and they get the equipment to bolster it further), but its directly at the cost of labour rights that the unions have fought for here.

[–] Phil_in_here@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I think, to reiterate, pesky things like regulations limit how much wealth can be extracted from an investment.

That's, like, the whole Conservative playbook. Deregulate to bring in investors; the people & environment in which we exist are not priorities.

[–] Hacksaw@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I think it's also the old hub and spoke model where American companies open shops in Canada to get market access and bypass certain regulatory requirements that apply to international firms. So the Canadian subsidiaries are spokes designed to extract wealth FROM Canadians rather than the "hub" in the US where all the investment money goes.

Same with Canadian companies that are bought by American conglomerates. They usually just become spokes rather than companies meriting innovation investment in their own.

[–] Daryl@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 days ago

The irony of this is that China is now doing this to the US - America is rapidly becoming a 'spoke' in the wheel of the Chinese 'hub'. For example, General Electric Appliance Division is now owned by a Chinese company Haier, and all GE Appliances built in America are now Chinese models, all profits going back to China. So even if America buys 'made-in-America', China still gets richer.