#manufacturing #GeneralMotors #PlantClosings #Lordstown
All signs point to a booming economy and job market, but folks in Lordstown, Ohio, are not seeing it.
General Motors is closing its plant there. Workers have a decision: move to another part of the country that has more jobs, or retrain and change careers.
In May 2019, GM sold the Lordstown plant to a company that will make electric trucks.
Heather Long wrote an article for the Washington Post about what’s happening in Lordstown. The article was also published March 9, 2019, in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Many workers are opting to go to other GM plants around the country. Others don’t want to leave the place they call home, where their children and extended family are, Long writes.
Perhaps some will get jobs at the new truck plant.
The workers qualify for the federal government’s marquee retraining program, Trade Adjustment Assistance, that covers cost of retraining classes up to two years, plus a weekly stipend to attend them, Long writes. About 30 percent of the workers have signed up for TAA, she says.
Still, many workers say they are too old to go back to school, or that they tried, but found the classes overwhelming, Long writes.
The Greater Youngstown area, where Lordstown is located, is among many urban settings, mostly in the Rust Belt, that are continuing to lose relatively well-paying manufacturing jobs, Long writes.
In this case, the Lordstown plant produced the compact Chevy Cruze, while the bulk of the U.S. car market is dominated by trucks and sport-utility vehicles.
The Lordstown example is one of many in which good-paying jobs, for the least educated, are disappearing, and unlikely to return.
If you are among this group of workers, you can’t be assured that your job will be there for you for as long as you want. Progress in automation, though good overall for manufacturing and commerce, is your personal enemy.
So what do you do? First, you have to think about a Plan B. That is, a way to make an income when your job goes away. Second W-2 jobs may not be the best answer.
However, there are many vehicles out there that allow you to make a potential income that could eventually dwarf your current one, by simply spending a few, part-time hours a week of your off-work time. It doesn’t matter your age, background or skill level. To check out one of the best such vehicles, message me.
As for the Lordstown GM workers, and others in a similar position, your workplace options are few, and mostly not good. You have to think about doing something different.
Waiting for the plant to reopen is futile. If re-education in manufacturing is difficult or impossible for you, try getting re-educated in something a little less taxing. Unless you are really willing to go out of your comfort zone, you may even have to figure out how to cobble together an income from jobs that will certainly pay you less per hour than you were making.
We all can feel bad for these workers, though many of us have seen this coming for a long time. It would have been easier had they thought about a Plan B years ago.
Alas, that is not reality. We, as workers, can’t stop progress in manufacturing. Companies have to look hard at cutting costs, and becoming nimble as markets for products change quickly. Some workers will suffer as a result, but those workers have to figure out how to solve that problem on their own, taking advantage of any available help.
Many say the U.S. doesn’t make things anymore. Well, it does, but with many fewer people.
Peter
Monthly Archives: June 2019
KNOW, GO AND SHOW
#know #go #show #leadership
Leadership expert John Maxwell says, “A leader knows the way, goes the way and shows the way.”
Motivational speaker Les Brown says, “Some of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears.”
Leadership has different definitions to different people, but many experts believe a leader shows, rather than tells.
A leader is someone a person watches and emulates, rather than one who gives orders.
To lead others, referring to Maxwell’s quote, you have to show the way. He doesn’t have to be loud, dynamic or boisterous. He just has to set an example for others to follow.
How do you become one of those? Going back to Brown’s quote, you can’t follow your fears.
You have to move, step or act whether or not what you are doing or where you are stepping is scary. Many good things are scary, at least at first.
Once you get in the habit of stepping or acting, it becomes much easier and much less scary. You will learn what you have, and why others should have it and take those willing to follow you to your – and their – dreams.
So, you’ve decided you want to be a leader, but your job doesn’t allow you to. Your job requires you to follow something or someone, perhaps something or someone you’d prefer not to follow. Still, you have to make a living, so you do as you are told.
Yet, there is something within you that is gnawing, telling you there is something much better out there for you.
Here is where you cast your fears aside and examine other alternatives. There are many vehicles out there that allow you to become one who knows, goes and shows.
Your mission, should you want to be a leader, is to look for one of those vehicles, by casting your fears aside and stepping outside your comfort zone.
To check out one of the best such vehicles that can help leaders lead, message me.
Certainly, not everyone is a leader. In fact, most leaders are found, rather than created.
The task is to match leaders with the right thing to lead others to.
If your current path is not working for you, it’s up to you to look for another one. You may not find it immediately, and you may have to stay in your “wrong” path until the right one appears.
That “right” path may appear through someone you already know, or someone you’ve yet to meet.
If your dreams are more powerful than your fears, if you long to know, go and show, you have to do what you need to and, perhaps with a few spare hours, work to find the way to get to your dreams.
It’s all possible, for those willing to look for it.
Peter
HAVE WE LOST THE ABILITY TO DREAM BIG?
#DreamBig #BigGoals #GreenNewDeal #BigDreams
In 1962, President John F. Kennedy predicted the U.S. would go to the moon in that decade.
It did in 1969.
“We choose to go to the moon … and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard,” Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts quotes JFK. His column on the subject of dreaming big also appeared Feb. 26, 2019, in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Pitts was focusing on the Green New Deal, proposed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Edward J. Markey.
Though the goals of the proposal are big, Pitts says some believe the idea is simply too big.
Regardless how you may feel about the Green New Deal, Pitts makes the point that the country seems to have lost the ability to dream big – an asset that has always been what America was about.
We, as individuals, too, may have lost that ability. We may have even been taught to temper our goals and dreams in favor of security.
People who do great things have many characteristics – not the least of which is the ability to see things not as they are, but as they could, or should, be. They then have the ability to carry through on that vision, overcoming all the obstacles, battling the naysayers and never losing sight of their dream.
Are you the type of person who settles for what is, rather than aiming for what could be?
Or, are you the type who sees what is as temporary, all the while aiming for what could be?
If your current situation is not giving you the life you want, know that YOU can change it, if you choose.
You don’t necessarily have to come up with the next big idea that will give you your fortune. You just have to be open to looking at situations that could change your life for the better, and have the wherewithal to crawl out of your comfort zone and go for it.
How do you find such situations? There are many out there that can offer you a potentially life-changing scenario. To check out one of the best, message me.
“Big things were what America did,” Pitts writes. “From carving highways out of corn fields and cyberspace, to airlifting hope to a starving city, to rebuilding a ravaged continent, to helping save the world from tyranny, to digging 40 miles of trench that united two oceans, to binding East and West with railroad tracks, to defeating the most powerful military on Earth with an army of farmers, when did ‘big’ ever scare America?” Pitts continued.
Sometimes, something big comes to us as something different. Sometimes, it comes to us from a messenger that we never expected. Sometimes, it can fall into the lap of the people willing to look for it.
It takes courage to ignore the people in your life who try to tell you that you can’t, shouldn’t or even had better not try THAT, even when what you are embarking on may not be as scary as you are led to believe.
You just have to have a dream big enough to not be deterred.
If you don’t have such a dream, find it. If you do, pursue it. You don’t have to settle for what is, when what could be may be waiting for you.
Peter
SUCCESS IS FLEETING; YOURS DOESN’T HAVE TO BE
#success #FleetingSuccess #TemporarySuccess #fortune #failure
Today’s success is tomorrow’s failure.
Or, so it seems that way.
We can all recall some person, entity, corporation etc. that was a huge success, but now is failing.
Ken Fisher, founder of Fisher Investments, took on this topic in a column for USA Today. It was also published Feb. 4, 2019, in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The most recent example Fisher cites is Sears, America’s biggest retailer 50 years ago that is now all but dissolved.
He also talks about lottery winners upon whom the “curse” hits, and they are broke and miserable years later. That seems less like a curse, and more like a lack of personal wisdom or common sense.
In today’s world, success is indeed fleeting. The world is changing at such a rapid pace that the latest “big thing” is pushed out almost immediately by “the next big thing.”
American companies, as an example, in many cases can’t see the next big thing coming. Or, if they can, cannot gear up fast enough to latch onto it. Or, if they are fortunate enough to foresee it, latch onto it too soon, and suffer a period of stagnation awaiting the growth that is to come.
And, as fortune would have it, that “thing” the company foresaw and geared up for is soon displaced by something else.
Decades ago, when Sears reigned supreme in retail, progress didn’t move as quickly. Online shopping was not even a twinkle in some inventor’s eye. The Big 3 automakers churned out big, gas-guzzling cars until, well, foreign economy cars began to displace them. Who knew at the time that electric and self-driving vehicles were just down the road?
Yes, success is fleeting. But personal success doesn’t have to be. Instead of waiting to be part of “the next big thing,” work hard, save some of what you earn every week, sock it away, invest properly as your nest egg builds and move into your elder years without worry.
Easier said than done? Perhaps. But it may hinge on the life decisions you make, large and small, every day.
Think before you spend. What you don’t spend you can save.
Also, don’t presume the situation you may have now will stay the same, or improve. Remember, your employer may be looking for the next big thing and may or may not find it. Or, they may find it too late. Or, they may not change fast enough.
In any case, you, as the employee, will be affected, and usually not for your betterment.
Therefore, you must create your own success. How? There are many ways out there for a person to spend a few, off-work, part-time hours a week creating a potential stream of income that will enable him or her to roll with the punches at work with much more ease. You just have to be willing to look at new ideas that may be presented to you.
If you are willing to check out one of the best such vehicles, message me.
Fisher talks about making yourself indispensible to your employer. Even the most indispensible people get reorganized, laid off or their job changes to an untenable degree.
It may be better to work at your job, and look for other ways to ensure your own success and, perhaps, the success of those willing to join you.
Peter