美國出口增長不是員工福音

This month, brace yourself to hear plenty of rhetoric coming out of Washington about “exports” and “jobs”. As a new Republican-dominated Congress starts work, energy companies are lobbying to drop a decades-old ban on exports of crude oil, arguing that such sales will create thousands of American jobs.

這個月，華盛頓會傳出大量有關“出口”和“就業”的言論。隨着共和黨主導的新國會開始工作，能源企業正在遊說，以求撤銷已實行數十年的原油出口禁令，辯稱此舉將爲美國創造數千個就業崗位。

As pitches go, it is a powerful one. But there is another question about exports and jobs that Congress should be debating more urgently: the fact that US businesses are becoming so efficient that they require fewer workers than ever before to deliver growth, even — or especially — for exports.

就推銷角度而言，這是一個強有力的理由。但在出口和就業方面，還有一個問題更迫切地需要國會展開辯論：美國企業的效率已變得如此之高，以致它們實現增長所需的工人數量比以往任何時候都要少，甚至——或者說尤其是——出口增長也是如此。

Take a look at some fascinating data compiled by the Commerce Department, and quietly released last year. This shows that in the past few years, the number of American jobs supported by exports has risen as overseas sales have grown. In 2009, exports created 9.7m jobs; by 2013 the tally was 11.3m.

看一看商務部(Commerce Department)去年編制並悄悄發佈的一些有意思的數據。數據顯示，過去幾年裏，隨着海外銷售的增長，出口帶動的美國就業人數也在升高。2009年，出口創造的就業崗位達到970萬個；到2013年，這一數字變爲1130萬個。

This is cheering. And since overseas sales rose further in 2014, amid a wider economic recovery, there is every reason to think that when the commerce department publishes the 2014 tally the number of export-linked jobs will have grown again.

這很令人欣喜。隨着2014年海外銷售在宏觀經濟復甦的背景下進一步增長，我們有充足理由認爲，當商務部發布2014年數據時，出口相關就業崗位將再次增多。

But there is a billion dollar catch. Look at how many jobs are being generated per dollar of sales and the graph steadily slopes down. Back in 2009, each billion dollar’s worth of exports was creating 6,763 jobs. In 2013, it was 5,590 jobs. That is a fall of 17 per cent — in just four years.

但這裏存在一個10億美元“陷阱”。看看每1美元海外銷售創造的工作崗位數量，就會發現曲線持續下行。2009年，每出口10億美元創造的崗位達6763個。2013年，這個數字變爲5590個。也就是說，4年期間下降了17%。

There are two ways to interpret this trend. If members of Congress want to feel cheery at the start of a new year, they could celebrate the fact that American companies are becoming more innovative and competitive on the world stage. This partly reflects lower energy costs. But another factor is that as recovery has taken hold in the US, levels of automation and digitisation are rising sharply too.

對這一趨勢有兩種解讀方式。如果國會議員希望在新年之初感到振奮，他們可以歡慶如下事實：美國企業在世界舞臺上正變得越來越創新，越來越有競爭力。這部分反映了能源成本降低。但另一個因素在於，隨着美國的經濟復甦站穩腳跟，自動化和數字化水平也在顯著上升。

That is prompting more US companies to develop production inside America, since it holds down labour costs. While Chinese workers might be cheaper than their American counterparts, robots are more cost effective than both — and often more competent.

由於這一趨勢壓低勞動力成本，它正在促使更多美國企業在國內生產。儘管中國工人可能比美國工人更便宜，但機器人的成本效益比中美兩國的工人都更好——而且往往更加稱職。

Take Alcoa, the world’s third-largest aluminium company. Having previously expanded production in places such as Mexico and Asia, it is now focusing heavily on the US. This winter, for example, it is remodelling a plant in Savannah, Georgia, that uses pioneering processes to forge metal to withstand ultra-high temperatures.

以世界第三大鋁業公司美國鋁業(Alcoa)爲例。該公司曾把生產業務拓展到墨西哥和亞洲等地，但如今正把目光投向美國本土。例如，這個冬季，該公司正在改造喬治亞州薩凡納市的一家工廠，該廠利用開創性的工藝鍛造能夠耐受超高溫的金屬。

A decade ago, such work might have been placed outside America. But Klaus Kleinfeld, Alcoa chief executive, says that it now makes sense to keep it in Savannah, to be closer to customers and research units. “The pressure to automate is huge,” he says. “We are not doing it for cost, but for innovation reasons . . . a precision is required that no human hand or eye can deliver.”

10年前，這項工作可能會被安排在美國以外進行。但美國鋁業首席執行官柯菲德(Klaus Kleinfeld)表示，如今把這一業務留在薩凡納市是合理的，因爲這樣可以更接近客戶和研發部門。“提高自動化程度的壓力十分巨大，”他說，“我們這麼做未必是出於成本考慮，而是出於創新的原因……我們需要達到人手或人眼難以企及的精度。”

Companies such as Whirlpool, General Electric and Ford are taking similar steps. Even clothing companies are doing the same. Levi Strauss, for example, still makes its jeans outside America. But it recently brought its innovation centre — and those jobs — from Turkey to San Francisco. Boston Consulting Group reckons that over half of all large US manufacturing companies are either actively re-shoring activity, or considering this, as America becomes a more competitive destination.

惠而浦(Whirlpool)、通用電氣(General Electric)和福特(Ford)等公司正在採取類似步驟。就連製衣公司也在這麼做。例如，李維斯(Levi Strauss)仍在美國以外生產牛仔褲。但該公司最近將其創新中心——連同相關崗位——從土耳其遷回舊金山。波士頓諮詢公司(BCG)認爲，隨着美國變成一個更具競爭力的生產基地，美國逾半大型製造企業正在積極實施或者考慮迴流(re-shoring)。

There is a more pessimistic twist to all this: what will the surplus workers do? An optimistic answer is that the economy will eventually adapt to generate new jobs, as it did 150 years ago when farm workers were forced off the land. A downbeat scenario is that this trend will exacerbate the bifurcation that has developed in the jobs market in the past decade, as mid-tier manufacturing jobs have disappeared. In a world of hyper-efficient companies there is swelling demand for a highly trained elite; indeed, Thursday’s jobless claims data suggest that companies are actually finding it hard to hire enough skilled workers. Alcoa needs plenty of computer programmers. But what it does not need (as much) are traditional metal-bashers. Exports can boom — but with fewer blue-collar workers.

這一切難免存在比較令人悲觀的另一面，那就是：多餘的工人怎麼辦？一個樂觀回答是，美國經濟最終將適應新形勢，創造出新的工作崗位，就像150年前農場工人被迫離開土地之後的情形一樣。另一個令人沮喪的可能前景是，隨着中層製造業崗位的消失，這一趨勢將加劇過去10年裏發生在就業市場的兩級分化。在一個企業效率極高的世界，市場對訓練有素的精英人才的需求在膨脹；的確上，上週四發佈的申領失業救濟人數數據似乎表明，企業其實難以招聘到足夠多的熟練工人。但企業不需要的是傳統的金屬鍛工。出口可能蓬勃發展，但企業需要的藍領工人減少了。

Mr Kleinfeld has recently started working with community colleges on retraining programmes, in a bid to help workers to adapt. Other companies are doing the same. But what is lamentably missing is any coherent policy from Washington to support such endeavour. Indeed, Congress seems to be paying woefully little attention to the issue, compared with the focus it is devoting to other topics, such as those energy exports. That needs to change — well before the current recovery loses steam.

不久前，美國鋁業的柯菲德開始跟社區學院合辦再培訓課程，試圖幫助工人們適應新環境。其它公司也在這麼做。但可惜的是，華盛頓方面對於此類努力沒有出臺協調的政策。實際上，相比國會對能源出口等其他議題投入的注意力，議員們似乎極少關注這一問題。這種局面需要改變——趕在當前復甦尚未失去勢頭之前。