* The Manufacturing Law Blog provides timely commentary on issues of importance to manufacturers and distributors. Contributors from the law firm of Robinson & Cole LLP are corporate compliance and litigation attorney, Jeff White; environmental, health and safety attorney, Pam Elkow; and labor and employment attorney, Nicole Bernabo.
In the past few months, several commentators have written articles about whether American manufacturing is on the cusp of a renaissance or whether it destined for more lean years. From time to time, we see articles in trade magazines that might be of interest to those that read our blog. Yesterday, Industry Week published an article by Robert Atkinson entitled “Why the 2000s Were a Lost Decade for American Manufacturing.” In the article, Mr. Atkinson analyzes jobs data and concludes that “there’s little doubt that the 2000s constituted the worst decade for manufacturing employment in the Republic’s history.” Obviously, this is just one take on the last decade (Mr. Atkinson acknowledges that there are several competing interpretations of this data), but we thought the article would be of interest to anyone involved in the manufacturing or distributing community.