A recent report by the Boston Consulting Group from a survey of the corporate members of the National Association of Manufacturers pointed out the simple math of innovation + infrastructure = manufacturing jobs.

Three highlights:

1). According to a recent study, the United States has aggregate structural costs that are 17.6 percent higher than those of its nine largest trading partners, putting U.S. companies at a significant disadvantage...

2) This imbalance puts the 13.8 million manufacturing jobs in the United States at risk as production increasingly threatens to move offshore.

3) Countries with the most innovative companies and industries tend to have a larger gross domestic product per capita than those that are less forward-looking.

That last point seems obvious. Companies with most innovative products command a price premium. Price premiums = cash-flows. If you have a nation dominated by innovative companies in innovative industries, you have a more productive, wealthier, sustainable country.

During the last few years we've lost our position of supremacy in innovation and manufacturing. We're no longer the most innovative country of any size. We're 8th among all nations. 2nd among large nations.

The result: Job growth in January, 2009, was missing among the manufacturing members of NFIB, National Association of Independent Business, a small business group. (That's right, job growth in January 2009 among small businesses. Granted, it's only .03%, but it's a start. ) The one industry not adding jobs for small business in January, nor planning on adding jobs in 2009 was the manufacturing industry. 

Small business is where job creation begins in a recession. Nearly 100% of all jobs created in a recession are created by small business. A declining rate of innovation compared to our competitors and an aging, deteriorating, infrastructure means not only are jobs not being created, they are being lost.

Innovation + infrastructure = jobs, current and new.

Links:

More than a glimmer of hope for jobs?

Small Business Payrolls Rising?

Sure Payroll Small Business Scorecard


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