WSJ Can't Figure Out Why Hiring Lags When Factories Are Not Humming

Actually the headline of the WSJ piece is "why hiring lags behind even as factories hum." It then presents accounts of several companies putting off hiring and expansion plans because of uncertainty about the course of the economy. Several factory owners or managers report increasing the length of the workweek or investing in new technology as an alternative to new hiring.

While the anecdotes are interesting, the reality is that the main reason that firms are not hiring is that manufacturing...