New Ford miracle needed to create jobs

Henry Ford is credited with producing the first everyman — or everywoman — car and perfecting the assembly line.

In the second week of Jan 1913, he did something that was far more significant in helping create the consumer society.

Detroit was the hub of automotive manufacture in the US and the world. Men worked on a mainly ad hoc basis for an average wage of $3.36 per day. One hundred years ago, Henry announced that Ford workers would be paid $5 a day. There was consternation in economic circles. It was claimed it could not be done; it would bankrupt Ford and possibly others who might feel obliged to follow suit.

The opposite happened; sales and production boomed. When Ford stopped manufacturing the Model T car 13 years later the price had dropped almost 50% and sales value increased 1,000%. With the introduction of the $5 a day Henry Ford turned employees into customers and ever since employees have fuelled the great world economic miracle.

Sadly economists and politicians are undoing the great work done by Henry Ford 100 years ago. They are destroying employment.

It is tragic that there appears to be no one to see the need for new thinking to respond to the changes computer technology has wrought. If Henry Ford has used similar thinking in 1913 most of us would still be going around in donkey carts.

Padraic Neary

Tubbercurry

Co Sligo