Quote Originally Posted by Shai_Hulud View Post
No, no, this is progress. Demolish a plant that employed thousands and replace it with one that employs hundreds.
To be fair, they're not really hiring the same set of workers. Most manufacturing jobs these days are automated and working on a assembly is becoming less and less common while at the same time jobs that require some sort of technical or computer skills are more common. The more important thing is whether or not these barely a hundred workers are getting paid a decent proportion to how many thousands of workers were paid previously.
If half the engineers are getting paid 60K a year wouldn't that have just as positive an effect on the economy as twice as many low-level workers making only 30K?