Tuesday, November 20, 2012

McKinsey report on manufacturing

The red boxes mark places where chemists typically work. Credit: McKinsey
From the Washington Post summary of a McKinsey report on manufacturing, an uncomfortable statement:
Manufacturing contributed 20 percent of the growth in global economic output in the decade ending in 2010, the McKinsey researchers estimate, and 37 percent of global productivity growth from 1995 to 2005. Yet the sector actually subtracted 24 percent from employment in advanced nations. 
“Manufacturing makes outsized contributions to GDP. It makes outsized contributions to overall productivity growth. It drives prosperity,” said James Manyika, one of the authors of the report. “But purely on employment, it has been declining over time.” 
That said, it's sort of good news for chemists:
In other words, the manufacturing worker of the future is more likely to have a graduate degree and wear a suit or a labcoat to work than to have only a high school education and carry a lunch pail.
I hope that's true.

3 comments:

  1. "...and he'll speak Mandarin."

    *sad trombone*

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  2. "In other words, the manufacturing worker of the future is more likely to have a graduate degree and wear a suit or a labcoat to work than to have only a high school education and carry a lunch pail."

    Don't get your hopes up about this meaning more jobs for chemists and chemical engineers. This is more likely because every damn job today has gotten professionalized to the point that you need a 4-year degree in janitorial science to sweep a damn floor!

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  3. I have come across McKinsey several time in my first life, what a bunch of +"&%รง holes they are, and management dote on their every word.
    They would not let me talk to the guy that came to our department to give a presentation, they sent me to a conference in Japan instead. This was much more interesting, Japan I mean, the conference was not bad either.

    ReplyDelete

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