Economics
Biden Tackles Factory-Job Slide Bedeviling U.S. Since 1979
- Factory job losses after past recessions offer ominous history
- Manufacturing jobs are 582,000 below pre-pandemic level
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Joe Biden began his presidency much as his predecessor did, promising to restore hope to a blue-collar middle class battered by decades of relentless job losses from automation and foreign competition. But the realities of trying to stoke U.S. manufacturing employment in the wake of an economic crisis are quickly endangering his plans.
After a period of recovery last year, U.S. factory payrolls stagnated in recent months, then went into reverse in January. The country is on course to repeat a pattern seen in every recession since manufacturing jobs peaked in June 1979: a structural step-down in employment even amid a sustained expansion in output.