The Manufacturing Employment Longitudinal Density Distribution In The USA

Barry M Moriarty

doi:10.52324/001c.9129

Abstract

This microanalysis of manufacturing employment density-distribution patterns in the United States from 1947 to 1982 reveals that the density of production workers increased with distance from the Manufacturing Belt, while the density of nonproduction workers decreased. The research supports the hypothesis that the nation’s hierarchical system of cities has served to sort manufacturing operations geographically on the basis of the returns that could be derived from different sized urban centers. As a consequence of this sorting process, nonproduction workers have become more concentrated in large urban centers, while production workers have become more concentrated in smaller settlements. Because most large urban centers are located in the Northeast and East North-Central regions, nonproduction workers have become more concentrated in the Manufacturing Belt, while production workers have settled primarily in other regions of the country. The process has helped to foster the development of a mosaic of geographically bifurcated labor markets among the larger and smaller urban centers throughout the country. The keywords in this paper include: deindustrialization, industrial restructuring, economic development, manufacturing employment redistribution, urban system, and industrial decentralization.

Highlights

It is the thesis of this paper that the principal mechanism underlying the geographic filtering of manufacturing within nations can be found in the direct relationships that exist among settlement size, external economies, and wage bills for identical jobs, regardless of the region in which they are performed (Goldfarb and Yezer 1976; Johnson 1983; Moriarty 1978)
Investment strategies concentrated on product diversification, with a number of new plants established in the Manufacturing Belt, along with many others located in other regions of the country, most of which were branch plants producing multiple, standardized products for growing regional markets
Since the mid-1960s, the demand for durable goods has slackened, and labor has become the main location factor (Moriarty 1983). During this more recent period, increased import competition, improved transportation, communications, material and process technologies, and changes in firm organization and management practices have led to an industrial restructuring that has resulted in investment strategies being concentrated on geographic diversification in which different functional operations are located in places offering the most favorable returns on capital investment: labor skill-external economy strategies learned from the location experience provided by the product cycle model

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Industrial production in the United States has been undergoing a geographic redistribution at both interregional and intraregional scales for several decades (Cromley and Leinbach 1981; Erickson 1976; Erickson and Leinbach 1979; Fuguitt and Beale 1984; Garnick 1985; Hansen 1979; Heaton and Fuguitt 1979; Moomaw 1985; Moriarty 1977, 1978, 1980, 1981, 1983, 1986, 1989; Norton and Rees 1979; Park and Wheeler 1983; Rees 1979; Schmenner 1982; Struyck and James 1975; Ti111973; and Zelinsky 1962). During the past two decades, many multiplant firms have taken advantage of the returns that can be derived from different sized urban centers, regardless of the life cycle stage of their products This more up-to-date location model is based on the labor skill-external economy requirements of the individual industrial facility. Other lower-level fabrication and assembly manufacturing functions tend to concentrate mainly in smaller cities and towns in the core region or in more peripheral areas some distance from the core where low-skilled workers are available In these areas, the ratio of nonproduction workers to production workers is low. As metropolitan centers grow, their external economies expand, and threshold levels are reached capable of supporting new plants oriented to local or regional consumer and intermediate markets Many of these plants are likely to be in the product innovation stage and require higher-skilled craftsmen and technical and managerial personnel. The empirical analysis does not require that a distinction be made between the two models

SPATIAL-TEMPORAL PATTERNS OF MANUFACTURING EMPLOYMENT

THE URBAN HIERARCHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF MANUFACTURING EMPLOYMENT

Findings

CONCLUSIONS