Yesterday, Dr. John Holdren, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, was in Danville to tour the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research (IALR). A research center with ties to multiple universities, IALR seeks to be a “catalyst for economic and community transformation” through its work in such varied fields as motorsports engineering, robotics and horticulture.
Dr. Holdren was impressed by the IALR and said that he would tell President Obama about it when he returns to Washington. What Dr. Holdren told assembled guests at IALR was perhaps more interesting. Speaking of the changing nature of American manufacturing, Dr. Holdren told assembled guests that traditional manufacturing is “a thing of the past.” He reaffirmed President Obama’s stance that the future of manufacturing is in emerging technologies–some of which could be discovered by technicians at the IALR. According to Roanoke NBC-affiliate WSLS: “Holdren added that America has never been good at competing for the cheapest jobs, ‘and we don’t want to be.'”
Dr. Holdren has a point: many of the jobs that were outsourced throughout the 1990s and 2000s will not come back and entrepreneurs are right to view emerging technologies as the “frontier” of manufacturing, yet there are also two problems with his statement. One, like President Obama’s decision to ax the Keystone Pipeline project, when nearly nine percent of Americans are unemployed, saying that we don’t want to compete for jobs–even if there aren’t many jobs or great jobs–is incredibly tone-deaf, especially when speaking in a city with one of Virginia’s highest unemployment rates.
Second, it’s not entirely true. At the same time that Dr. Holdren was touring IALR, not far away in Galax, officials at the Vaughn-Bassett Furniture Company were announcing that the company will embark on an $8 million expansion that will ultimately create 115 jobs.
“You can’t compete with China and Vietnam and Malaysia unless you have the finest equipment money can buy and the best employees in the world,” [John Bassett] said to roaring applause.
Meanwhile
…In Henry County, the birthplace of Virginia furniture making, Hooker Furniture Vice President Art Raymond said he’s more optimistic than he’s been in a decade about the return of manufacturing to America, in light of China’s shift toward manufacturing higher-tech products and higher wages, along with its growing consumer class.
One factor contributing to the Southside’s chronically high unemployment rate was the failure to diversify the region’s economy when the times were good. Limiting ourselves to emerging technologies, exclusively, and saying that we won’t compete for traditional manufacturing jobs seems just as shortsighted today.
