While it may seem as though the recent election of Donald J. Trump to the presidency of the United States is playing a large role in bringing welding jobs back home, the reverse can actually be said. It was more the need to bring jobs back home that got the newly inaugurated president elected rather than a president being responsible for the return of industries such as welding. In order to understand just how significant this trend is, let’s look at some key issues and facts.
We Are Not Alone in Our Plight to Bring Jobs Back Home
Perhaps the Democratic Party should have read more into Brexit than they did. This was a key indicator that the Western World is just plain tired of shipping our factories east. Yes, some companies initially saved money, temporarily raising their bottom line, but those ‘victories’ were short lived. England, for one, was tired of outsourcing jobs to India, Pakistan and other countries further east throughout parts of the EU. The same can be said of the United States.
Ask anyone who has been unemployed for years on end and you will hear the same sad story. They have been unable to find jobs because there are none. Their company and others like it had moved operations overseas where labor was cheaper as were operational costs due to higher currency ratios between both the UK and the US and emerging markets. In other words, companies could buy more with their money.
You Get What You Pay For
Then there is the issue with cheap materials and supplies. When you are working on building automobiles, for example, the welding supplies you purchase must be at least up to a minimum standard. When it comes to American made cars, companies like Ford and General Motors have been renowned for over a hundred years for the quality of materials and craftsmanship they put into each and every vehicle. Cars made in the USA were superior in every way.
While other countries such as Japan had put more into technology than the US or the UK, the quality of their materials and labor was sorely lacking. Not the Japanese, per se, but emerging markets that hired cheap labor with little or no training and who were expected to do the work of carefully trained journeymen and master craftsmen in the US. If you want quality, quite simply, you need to pay for it. The old adage holds, “You get what you pay for.”
A Snowball Picking up Speed and Weight
So, the trends shaping the return of welding, and manufacturing on the whole, in the United States have been building for quite some time. It wasn’t Donald Trump who shaped the trend to bring welding jobs back home but rather the dire need to regrow our economy by giving workers back their income. England has Brexit and the United States has Trump.
Both nations are looking forward to a time when workers are back on the job and the economy is mended. Until that time, it’s imperative to remember these trends so that as a nation, we don’t backslide, putting us deeper in debt than we currently are. These trends are shaping the future for our children and our children’s children, so let’s remember that and buy American in the US and buy British in the UK.
