I was recently talking to a buddy of mine who is in charge of production of some parts for a large hardware brand in Shenzen. We were laughing about how the US wants to do manufacturing again and how they think it will create jobs. He says in one of the factories he uses, they just have 1 dude working most of the time. They work in shifts, so it isn't like the same dude and they always have a second dude which hops around and helps where needed. But for most of the things they do, it's just one dude monitoring all the machines. If there is an issue, he shuts down that line and calls a dedicated repair team to get it up and running asap. It seems the US still has the idea of factories from WW2 in mind, where everything is dirty and there's people everywhere. The reality of most high end modern day factories, like those used to create computer parts, is everything is ultra clean, highly automated and run by very few people. China hasn't been sitting still these past 50+ years since everything was outsourced there, they are masters of efficiency and automation. Sometimes you'll see a small manual line doing a single step, which is tricky to automate. But it'll be maybe 15 women (usually women because they generally have better dexterity), doing only the one thing.

You forgot to mention that that business went out of business.

Next panel: why can no one afford my product!

I think the establishment is actually quite sensitive to unemployment figures because people that are unemployed have time to demonstrate.

Panama is on strike now for factory shutdowns

The sad part is... I'm living picture 1 right now, with the Microsoft outsourcing my team to be lead from india and reducing manpower from 12 to five and thinking the service will be as good as before... first they wanted the bakers do the work of a pastry chefs and the pastry chefs do the work of the bakers. Now they want the bakers and the pastry chefs to do the butchers job too.

Oh my Ford the drahmah

Don't just stalk the ML subs, post their memes too. Great stuff.

I think the people who actually want to work might be in the minority?

I guess most people want to contribute to society, or earn money, or both.