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Silicon Valley Innovation Leads in Nation’s Manufacturing

From 1990 through 2014, factory employment nose-dived by 39.5 percent -- yet it remains a significant industry in California.

(TNS) -- A revolution in manufacturing has begun to emerge that is driven by innovation and customized products that are delivered quickly to customers, and the Bay Area and Santa Clara County have the digital know-how to lead the transformation of factories, experts and executives said Tuesday.

"This is not your father's manufacturing," said Sean Randolph, director of the Bay Area Council's Economic Institute, which released the report on Tuesday at an event in San Jose at the Jabil Blue Sky Center, which showcases cutting-edge manufacturing technologies.

To be sure, manufacturing has shed a massive amount of jobs over the last two decades. But the manufacturing jobs that remain in California pay much better than they did years ago, according to a report released Tuesday by the Bay Area Council's Economic Institute.

"We need to think differently about manufacturing," said Sean Randolph, director of the Economic Institute. "Manufacturing today is leaner, cleaner, it employs fewer people with higher skills

From 1990 through 2014, factory employment nose-dived by 39.5 percent. Yet it remains a significant industry in California.

"Manufacturing matters," said John Dulchinos, vice president of Global Automation with Jabil, a contract manufacturer for electronic and digital components. "It is a big driver of the current economy. We are on the verge of what will be revolution in manufacturing."

That upheaval also appears to have unleashed higher wages for the manufacturing jobs that remain. Over the quarter-century from 1990 through 2014, manufacturing wages in California, adjusted for inflation, jumped 42 percent. During the same period, wages for all jobs in California rose 23.6 percent.

"This suggests that the structural shifts that have taken place in manufacturing over the last several decades have resulted in the need for fewer but more highly qualified workers," the Economic Institute report stated.

Santa Clara County and the Bay Area are uniquely positioned to lead this revolution and help usher in new products to bolster it, according to the Economic Institute.

"If you figure that a lot of the enabling technologies are created here, that gives us a distinct advantage," Randolph said. "The Bay Area has a concentration of technologies that are needed for the new kinds of manufacturing."

©2016 the Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, Calif.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.