September 3, 2007 (LPAC)--In what was likely their version of a Labor Day appreciation, National Public Radio this morning spent six minutes reporting on how "labor" is disappearing. Their focus was on the U.S. auto "mittelstand," the hundreds of small- to medium-sized support facilities which make the thousands of unseen parts which are then assembled into automobiles, at the plants of Toyota, GM, Ford and others.

This is the heart of the U.S. "machine tool" industry; in fact, the shop NPR broadcast from had a 160-ton punch press, an incredible power-density tool.

They estimated some 30 major bankruptcies of these auto supply shops since 2000, and many smaller ones, amounting to 185,000 jobs lost, "far more than the major manufacturers," which have cut or lost "only" about 100,000 in the same time. Health care costs and steel prices are both up, and NPR acknowledged it's only going to get worse. Vehicle sales are down across the board, even Toyota is now feeling the pinch. NPR's report concluded that another one-third to one-half of these shops won't be around in three years.