WASHINGTON, DC-"The state of manufacturing, the overall economy and the American worker are much better now than they were a year ago," says Jerry Jasinowski, president of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM).
Releasing the NAM's annual Labor Day report, Jasinowski says manufacturing had been buffeted by a series of shocks in recent years-the terrorist attacks on 9/11, accounting scandals in 2002 and the buildup to the war in Iraq in 2003. "These shocks held back an economy struggling to emerge from recession," Jasinowski says. "However, economic conditions have improved significantly over the past year."