Labor-intensive work that would employ a lot of people is done overseas. The newer manufacturers are kind of lean and mean, and they just can't replace the jobs. It takes fewer employees to turn out the products.

210

While all other sectors of the U.S. economy are growing, manufacturing employment is either stagnant or declining. We're losing the low-skilled, brawn-intensive manufacturing jobs to countries that offer abundant cheap labor, and the plants that remain tend to employ programmers and engineers that are skilled in today's technology.

166

These new operations are not likely to create enough jobs to replace the labor-intensive jobs being lost to offshore production. But the recent trend has been a slowing of the manufacturing job losses in North Carolina compared with the 1995 to 2003 time period.

164

Manufacturing capacity utilization is at a four-year high, and production continues to climb. Unfortunately, this hasn't translated into increased employment, as manufacturing companies are finding other ways to increase efficiency and trim costs through technology and outsourcing.

96