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Inside Purdue University's new Manufacturing Design Laboratory, robots fabricate pieces, then hand them off to one another for testing – all without humans touching the parts.
FILE PHOTO: Samantha Horton/IPB NewsNumbers released this week showed widespread declines in manufacturing productivity across the country last year.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a national decline in labor productivity for 67 of the 86 manufacturing industries they monitor.
Notably for Hoosiers, there was a 4.7 percent drop in productivity for transportation manufacturing. According to the Indiana Economic Development Corporation, the state has the second-largest automotive industry in the country.
Stephanie Wells is the vice president of workforce development for the Indiana Manufacturers Association. She says part of the national productivity decrease is likely a result of hiring shortages in the state.
“We can’t hire enough people and so I think this is just the outcome of that,” Wells says.
Some of the sectors that did experience productivity growth were oil and gas extraction.
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