In an early scene from the Oscar-winning “Harlan County U.S.A.,” a piece of technology is shown swallowing coal miners by the dozen. One after the other, we see helmeted workers merge their prone bodies with a conveyor belt that carries them like a line of sausages into the depths. Nearly five decades later, we know technology not only swallowed the miners; it would swallow their jobs.
The transition to cleaner energy has closed a lot of coal-fired power plants since 1976, when “Harlan County” was released. While that shift creates jobs in wind, solar and natural gas, it has cost jobs, often better-paying union mining jobs. Technology is also ruining the careers of many miners, even as it has made mining safer for those who remain. A telling statistic is productivity.
About a quarter of a million miners worked in the American coal mining industry in 1980. That number has dwindled to 43,000 as of this spring, yet total coal production per human worker is way up. That is technology at work.
Using U.S. government data, a report from the Brookings Institution noted that one hour of miner’s work in 1980 produced less than 2 tons of coal. By 2015, an hour generated more than 6 tons. It’s not that those workers were getting a lot more done on their own; more was getting done, and that required fewer workers.In the film, you see miners in the 1970s putting up pillars to support ceilings deep in the mine. Now huge machines can perform what’s called “longwall” mining, chopping through coal not by the room but by the mile.
The industry’s center has shifted too, paving the way for new technology to reduce head count. Instead of digging holes deep into Kentucky, coal companies increasingly blow up and scrape the tops of hills in Montana. Huge, driverless robot vehicles can move coal, often with few human miners in sight.
A Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research report put it this way: “It is the same thing that happened throughout much of the country — productivity gains led to fewer workers needed to produce the same output.” The deregulation of railroads aided this shift, making it a lot cheaper to move the western coal. Given all this, it’s surprising that just last year the global consulting firm McKinsey & Co. warned of a looming talent shortage in the mining industry.
“71 percent of mining leaders are finding the talent shortage is holding them back from delivering on production targets and strategic objectives,” the report said. “Indeed, 86 percent of mining executives tell us it is harder to recruit and retain the talent they need.”How is this possible given the employment trends I noted earlier? One answer is that the McKinsey report looks at the vast mining industry as a whole, which goes well beyond coal. Secondly, the report is a reminder that the dirty, dangerous mining jobs seen in “Harlan County U.S.A.” are not necessarily the mining jobs of the 21st century. Highly educated metallurgists, mine planners and commodity hedging analysts find work in this industry..
What this tells us is that as machines take over the dirty work, mining – coal mining included – becomes an increasingly white-collar occupation. Manufacturing, as a whole, is going in the same direction.I spoke recently to the editor of The Economist, who came to the interview armed with an astonishing statistic: The number of people in manufacturing with doctoral degrees has increased by 50% since 2016. Manufacturing, like coal mining, tends not to look like it did in the 1970s.
One of our country’s key challenges is to make sure folks living in places likeHarlan County, Kentucky, today can find better jobs. Census data shows fewer than 11% of residents there have a bachelor’s degree or higher.
This story is part of our “Econ Extra Credit” series and newsletter. In August, we’re watching “Harlan County U.S.A.,” which is available to stream on Max and the Criterion Channel, with a subscription. It also may be available to borrow at your local library.
