Manufacturing and Services: Together Forever

Posted on April 22, 2011 by Gary Yakimov

In a recent post on Innovation Policy Blog sponsored by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, Stephen Ezell identifies the important relationship between manufacturing and services and the need to support both, rather than the often promulgated false choice of supporting one over the other.
To further understand this relationship, consider recent data on the express industry, one of the many industries that are often cited as the key to the nation’s growth.  The express industry includes such important service companies as Federal Express and United Parcel Service.  The Impacts of the Express Delivery Industry on the Global Economy by Oxford Economics highlights that the industry’s direct contribution to world GDP was $80 billion in 2008, and accounted for 1.3 million direct jobs.

Continue reading....