Manufacturing: A brief global look by ???
April 9, 2011 Manufacturing is a key component of any country’s economy and many comparisons have been made between the United States (U.S.) and other countries. Since World War II the U.S. has been the leader of the manufacturing sector due mainly to the fact that the U.S. industrial plants were not devastated by the destruction of war as where most of Europe and Asia. This paper is a team effort and will give a brief look at the state of manufacturing and some of the incentives each government has used to entice the growth of manufacturing within their respective countries. The countries to be examined are the United States, China, Germany and Japan. You hear it on the news, read it in the newspapers and see the results in the stores that manufacturing is dead in the (U.S.); however, if you do a little research you find the U.S. is still the leader in manufacturing production. As Stephen Manning of the Associated Press acknowledged in a rare “just the facts” story in mid-February, the U.S. “by far remains the world’s leading manufacturer,” producing goods valued at a record $1.6 trillion in 2007 — nearly double the $811 billion produced a decade earlier. Indeed, the AP writer noted, “For every $1 of value produced in China’s factories [in 2007], America generated $2.50.” Not bad for a country that doesn’t produce anything anymore. Some other facts about U.S. manufacturing are:
•The United States is the world’s largest manufacturing economy, producing 21 percent of global manufactured products. Japan is second at 13 percent and China is third at 12 percent.
•U.S. manufacturing produces $1.6 trillion of value each year, or 11 percent of U.S. GDP.
•Manufacturing supports an estimated 18.6 million jobs in the U.S.—about one in six private sector jobs. Nearly 12 million Americans (or 9 percent of the