Manufacturing & Technology News articles from May 2009

Manufacturing & Technology News archives from May 2009

China's manufacturing jobs surged as American jobs disappeared.
May 29, 2009... While the United States was losing 1.4 million manufacturing jobs from 2002 to 2006, China was substantially increasing the number of workers in its manufacturing sector, according to a new report on Chinese manufacturing employment and...

U.S. military faces a far bigger foe: the collapse of the U.S. dollar.
May 29, 2009... The Pentagon is consumed by hunting terrorists in the Middle East but there is far greater national security threat that confronts the country that has been ignored: the mismanagement of the U.S. economy and its increasing dependence on...

The Association for Manufacturing Technology.(People)
May 29, 2009... The Association for Manufacturing Technology (AMT) has a new president: Douglas Woods, formerly president of Parlec International. Woods, 48, was a member of AMT's board from 2000 to 2008 and was its chairman in 2005 and 2006. He has worked in...

National Center for Manufacturing Sciences.(People)
May 29, 2009... The National Center for Manufacturing Sciences has a new chairman: Ralph Resnick, the former chief technology officer at Ex One Corp. and Extrude Hone. He is currently the vice president and chief technology officer at the National Center for...

Gary Powell.(People)
May 29, 2009... Gary Powell, a 33-year federal employee, is retiring from his post as the Assistant Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Industrial Policy. Powell directed and managed the policies and recommendations related to trends in the defense...

U.S. avoids metric requirement.
May 29, 2009... American companies will be allowed to include non-metric labeling on their products they sell to 27 European countries, thanks to a rule published in the May 7 issue of the Official Journal of the European Union. "The ruling will allow U.S....

Financial Times: Japan should abandon manufacturing.
May 29, 2009... Japan should abandon its "mania" for manufacturing and do what the United States and Britain have done: focus on management instead, according to the Financial Times in a May 25 editorial entitled "The Malady of Manufacturing." Japan would...

No turnaround yet for autos.
May 29, 2009... The U.S. auto industry is not yet seeing any signs of turnaround. Only 716,000 vehicles are expected to be sold in May, according to J.D. Power and Associates, an annual rate of only 7.6 million units. This is down by 36 percent from May 2008,...

Milliken sells off auto division.
May 29, 2009... Milliken & Co. is selling its Automotive Body Cloth division to an investment company based in South Carolina. Milliken will divest itself of factories in Marietta, S.C., Abbeville, S.C., Spartanburg, S.C., Toccoa, Ga., and a plant in Brazil....

Greenies can't get to like the atom.
May 29, 2009... The environmental movement can't warm up to nuclear power. Friends of the Earth has filed a legal appeal with the South Carolina Supreme Court to reverse a South Carolina Public Service Commission decision to approve the building of two new...

Multinationals don't create any U.S. jobs.
May 29, 2009... Multinational companies shed 1.9 million jobs in the United States between 2000 and 2007, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. Employment at "nonbank" multinational companies dropped from 23,885,000 in 2000 to 21,918,000 jobs in 2007,...

Manufacturers increase foreign investment.
May 29, 2009... U.S. manufacturing companies have increased their investments abroad over the past four years. In 2008, U.S. manufacturers invested $51.8 billion overseas, down from $55 billion in 2007, but up from $47 billion in 2006, and $28 billion in 2005....

Obama promotes solar jobs program for foreign producers.
May 29, 2009... President Obama stood proudly in front of one of the world's largest photovoltaic arrays at the Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada on May 27, proclaiming the early success of his stimulus spending, but few of the 72,416 solar panels - along with...

Obama's budget proposal for Commerce Dept. agencies.
May 29, 2009... The Obama administration has proposed a federal budget that includes record spending and record deficits. Total tax receipts for 2010 are projected to be $2.333 trillion, while total outlays are projected at $3.591 trillion, for a projected...

Global electronics industry is living off the fruits of a previous generation.(Industry overview)
May 29, 2009... The global electronics industry continues to live off investments made in technology 15 years ago, and there are few, if any, breakthroughs that look like they will generate new and substantial levels of growth for the industry, according to...

C. Fred Bergsten warns that foreign debt will clobber America one way or another.
May 29, 2009... Huge trade deficits that rose to an unprecedented 6.1 percent of U.S. GDP in 2006 were the primary cause of the current financial crisis and must be addressed in a meaningful way in order to avoid a potentially bigger financial meltdown,...

The business climate for American firms in China.(RECENT REPORTS, STUDIES AND RESOURCES)
May 29, 2009... The Business Climate for American Firms in China from the American Chamber of Commerce in the People's Republic of China describes dozens of roadblocks by the Chinese government for American companies wanting to do business in China. Chinese...

DR-CAFTA and Worker's Rights: moving from paper to practice.(RECENT REPORTS, STUDIES AND RESOURCES)
May 29, 2009... DR-CAFTA and Worker's Rights: Moving from Paper to Practice from the Washington Office of Latin America says that NAFTA has not improved working conditions "and violations have not diminished regardless of promises made by the member countries...

The competitiveness impact of climate change mitigation policies.(RECENT REPORTS, STUDIES AND RESOURCES)
May 29, 2009... The Competitiveness Impact of Climate Change Mitigation Policies from the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, says that if the United States sets a price on CO2 at $15 per ton, American manufacturers will lose 1 percent of their annual...

2009 Competitiveness Redbook - National Edition.(RECENT REPORTS, STUDIES AND RESOURCES)
May 29, 2009... 2009 Competitiveness Redbook - National Edition from the National Association of Manufacturers ranks the 50 states according to 50 economic indicators. The book, compiled by accounting firm BKD, provides economic development officials with data...

The Alliance for Science and Technology Research in America.(RECENT REPORTS, STUDIES AND RESOURCES)
May 29, 2009... The Alliance for Science and Technology Research in America has published statistics on each state describing how they stand with regard to investment in research and development, science and technology and education. They are located at...

Cyberstates.(RECENT REPORTS, STUDIES AND RESOURCES)
May 29, 2009... Cyberstates, the 12th annual report from what was once the American Electronics Association (now called TechAmerica), says the technology industry added 77,000 jobs in 2008. But none of those new jobs came in high-tech manufacturing, which lost...

The New York Times.(RECENT REPORTS, STUDIES AND RESOURCES)
May 29, 2009... The New York Times has published data that lists the salaries of the 200 highest paid chief executive officers from public companies. At the top of the list was Motorola CEO Sanjay K. Jha, who earned $104.4 million. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison was...

High Road or Low Road? Job Quality in the New Green Economy.(RECENT REPORTS, STUDIES AND RESOURCES)
May 29, 2009... High Road or Low Road? Job Quality in the New Green Economy, a report by the organization Good Jobs First, argues that there are not that many high paying jobs in the green economy. "Discussions of green jobs have largely assumed that these...

Rural America in deep downturn.(RECENT REPORTS, STUDIES AND RESOURCES)
May 29, 2009... Rural America in Deep Downturn finds that rural areas in America held off recession longer because of the farm boom, but are now losing jobs faster than metropolitan areas. Rural America has lost 3 percent of its jobs since December 2007,...

Building a sustainable energy future.(RECENT REPORTS, STUDIES AND RESOURCES)
May 29, 2009... Building a Sustainable Energy Future from the National Science Board says the U.S. government must take the lead in developing a nationally coordinated research, development, demonstration and deployment strategy aimed at transforming the...

High-speed passenger rail: future development will depend on addressing financial and other challenges and establishing a clear federal role.(RECENT REPORTS, STUDIES AND RESOURCES)
May 29, 2009... High-Speed Passenger Rail: Future Development Will Depend on Addressing Financial and other Challenges And Establishing A Clear Federal Role is available from the Government Accountability Office at http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09560t.pdf....

Commercial aviation: airline industry contraction due to volatile fuel prices and falling demand affects airports, passengers and federal government revenues.(RECENT REPORTS, STUDIES AND RESOURCES)
May 29, 2009... Commercial Aviation: Airline Industry Contraction Due to Volatile Fuel Prices and Falling Demand Affects Airports, Passengers and Federal Government Revenues is available from the Government Accountability Office, Report No. GAO-09-393,...

2008 Annual Report of the Packers & Stockyards Program.(RECENT REPORTS, STUDIES AND RESOURCES)
May 29, 2009... 2008 Annual Report of the Packers & Stockyards Program describes increasing concentration in the beef, poultry, hog and sheep slaughtering industries: http://archive.gipsa.usda.gov/pubs/2008_psp_annual_report.pdf.

The American Society of Civil Engineers.(RECENT REPORTS, STUDIES AND RESOURCES)
May 29, 2009... The American Society of Civil Engineers says the average score in 16 different categories of the U.S. infrastructure was a "D." The grades are "embarrassing," says the ASCE, "If my child came home with those grades, I would not be happy. It's a...

Lighting in commercial buildings.(RECENT REPORTS, STUDIES AND RESOURCES)
May 29, 2009... Lighting in Commercial Buildings from the Energy Information Administration provides data on the types of lighting equipment, the amount of floorspace that is lit, and the percentage of floorspace lit by each type. "Lighting is a major consumer...

Bringing broadband to rural America, report on a rural broadband strategy.(RECENT REPORTS, STUDIES AND RESOURCES)
May 29, 2009... Bringing Broadband to Rural America, Report on a Rural Broadband Strategy, from the Federal Communications Commission (May 22, 2009), says that hundreds of rural communities, governments and businesses "are missing opportunities to be more...

Advice concerning possible modifications to the U.S. generalized system of preferences, 2008 review of competitive need limit waivers.(RECENT REPORTS, STUDIES AND RESOURCES)
May 29, 2009... Advice Concerning Possible Modifications to the U.S. Generalized System of Preferences, 2008 Review of Competitive Need Limit Waivers looks at requests to eliminate duties on PET resin from the Philippines, leather from Brazil and stranded...