Trump wants to restart the factories: but the problem is workers (Americans), that’s why

Almost a revenge of the work On everything else, from the capital to technology. And it is surprising that the union does not make a communication campaign. We would never have imagined that, in the era of superiority (even intellectual) of the machines, the real scarce resource was the human personeven in some cases the one without skills, to be formed. Let’s discuss thestrategic importance of rare lands, but The rarity that should anguish more businesses is that of laborespecially specialized.

The unemployment rate

At one time the economic and financial crises were characterized by the ghost of unemployment that was accompanied, in the periods of recession, to the inflationary fever. Today, extreme paradox, the drama is that of company requests that do not find the corresponding professional profiles they need. According to the latest Excelsior research of Unioncamere, the so -called Mixmatch, that is, the gap between demand and demand of work, reached 47.8 percent in Italy. Half of the seats remains empty. But if we go down in qualifications, that percentage grows dramatically. For example, 70 percent for some tasks in construction.

In Italy we have an unemployment to 6.3 percent. But in the United States, where the Trump administration aims to repatriate some productions to rebalance the commercial scale, the unemployment rate is just over 4 percent. That is, in the statistical condition that can be safely defined as « full employment ». The labor, in theory, would be there and is in immigration that, however, in America, and not only, we want to limit with lots of mass expulsions. They are called, with a bad translation from English, « deportations ». They also happened with Obama and Biden (perhaps even greater extent).

The Apple case

The question that arises is the following. It is worthwhile to unleash a «Datiate war« which upsets the financial markets and jeopardizes the relationships between countries, if then in the end The repatriation of the productions, that is, the final objective declared, has as its limit, currently unsurpassed, the lack of labor? The numerous behind the tariff decisions of the Trump administration are also explained by this trivial consideration that surprises us not before.

TIM Cook, Chief Executive Officer of Apple, has authoritatively explained, with wealth of details, all the difficulties encountered in the structural change of production chains.
It is not just a question of low wages and the impossibility of proposing them to workers at home, assuming that it is possible to find them. It mainly depends on the existence of an ecosystem of skills concentrated in a place (think of Foxconn’s iPhone City) formed by a dense branch of supplies of the various components. The offer of Chinese engineers is incomparable and not replicable. In the United States, added the head of Apple, it would even be impossible to fill a room of engineers available for hiring.

Then there is a precision tool that also exploits the duty of perfection, typical of oriental culture. Almost an obsession with detail, for finishing. And then there are the times. Apple took three years to transfer a significant part of its production from China to India. Another example: the TSMC semiconductor factory in Arizona has struggled a lot, suffering a year delay, precisely because of the difficulty of having specialized staff.
The data of the census Bureau, updated to the third quarter of 2024, report that 20.6 percent of the United States production plants are unable to reach full capacity due to lack of an adequate job offer.

Skills

Exemplary, in a negative sense, the LVMH experience in Texas. Bernard Arnault decided, in 2019, to produce the famous Louis Vuitton bags in the Rochambaau Ranch factory in Alvarado. He was inaugurated with Trump’s main pomp to his first term. Arnault, who was also present at the inauguration of last January, wanted to circumvent the threat of duties and take advantage of the generous tax exemptions. The goal of reaching a thousand employed remained on paper. And not only for the difficulty of finding labor but also and above all for The poor productivity and the very low qualitative yield that made Texana unit the worst in terms of performance of the entire LVMH group. Too many mistakes, Too many waste. Up to 40 percent of fine skin thrown away. An authentic industrial disaster.
« The development of the workforce – is the opinion of Claudio Soldà, director of Public Affairs of Adecco Italia – requires the combination of policies of education, training and management of immigration that are carried out in the medium and long term, In times not in line with those requested by companies in the resHoring operations ». Soldà also mentions a report by Lightcast, a leading company in the world in analyzes on the labor market, which It provides in the United States a lack of 6 million workers in the next eight years.

However, the duties have the consent of the American unions. And above all of the powerful union of car workers, The United Automobile Worldrstraditionally close to the Democrats. The declaration of Shaw Fain, head of the Auow, absolutely favorable to Trump’s tariff policy despite the ferocious wave of layoffs, especially in the public administration, aroused a certain surprise.

Overturned Luddism

«These are words that have left me very perplexed – is the opinion of Marco Bentivogli – and show that Protectiveness has a hallucinogenic effect first of all. We delude ourselves, despite the story the opposite, that it is sufficient for a tariff barrier to restore working conditions that will no longer return. As if the factories of the past could reopen one day to the other and the workers, in layoffs, were there to wait, without however aging. This is not the case. During the first Trump administration, the states of the so -called Rust Belt remained disappointed, the lost places were not recreated or were created elsewhere. The weight of the formation is underestimated which is now also essential for modest tasks. And what I call cognitive engagement. You have to know how to do but also believe it. It is not just a matter of an adequate salary. It is also passion for what you do».

One of the most present Italian groups in the United States is Sofidel, which produces toilet paper and for domestic use. 50 percent of the turnover is made overseas with ten factories, from Florida to the state of Washington. The raw material, the cellulose, comes mainly from Canada and Mexico. « Our main difficulty – explains Simone Capuano, Executive Vice President of Sofidel – is to have labor and above all avoid an excessive turn over. The American labor market is very dynamic, a place is also left for a difference of a few cents per hour. Stability here is not a value, indeed the opposite. Many of the most humble works, as in Italy, are not very attractive to Americans. In Florida and Las Vegas we have many South Americans, all regular but we have noticed that in some cases the visa has already been withdrawn ».
In short, it is not so easy, for a thousand reasons, not least the leavening of the costs of a system, investing in the United States. But the greatest obstacle remains that of the scarcity of workers. In a curious reversal of the history of Luddism, Dthe machines would be, made more and more intelligent, to « strike » for the lack of people which should replace.

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