Made in America label stages comeback at U.S. stores

May 3, 2013 by Leave a comment

NEW YORK: When Roger Simmermaker went shopping for clothes at a Florida mall in the mid-1990s, he wanted to buy American, but to his frustration, he couldn’t find anything made in the USA.

The experience motivated Simmermaker, an electronics technician by trade, to write “How Americans Can Buy American” – a guide to finding products manufactured in the United States, which were a scarce commodity at the time.

Nearly 20 years after writing the book, he has seen a big change, with the pendulum in full swing back toward a wider choice of American-made products. They are often available without the expected higher price tag.

“It’s definitely easier,” says Simmermaker, 47, who lives in Orlando and works for a defense contractor. “Especially in the last year or so, things have really changed.”

Those who believe in buying American-made goods from US-owned companies say it creates jobs and boosts the economy through reinvested profits and taxes.

Profit-driven US companies have their own reasons for locating factories, but manufacturers of goods ranging from refrigerators and dishwashers to laptops and tablets are starting to bring some of their production home, affording more opportunities for consumers with the patriotic conviction that Americans ought to buy American.

Better still, that “Made in the USA” label may no longer carry such a premium price tag. That’s because production and shipping costs in China and other foreign manufacturing centers are rising. Shifting some manufacturing back to the United States doesn’t necessarily mean manufacturers have to raise prices to compensate for higher labor costs.

To be sure, many industries are still dominated by imports – toys and textiles, for example. Still, Simmermaker and others who believe in buying American are seeing a broad shift.

“Reshoring” advocates were thrilled earlier this year when Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s largest retailer, announced it was throwing its weight behind the movement. In January, the chain – known for its extensive selection of imported goods – said it would spend an additional $50 billion over the next 10 years on American-made products, “helping to onshore US production in high-potential areas like textiles, furniture and higher-end appliances.”

Likewise, Apple Inc. said it planned to build some of its iMac line in the United States instead of China. Ford Motor Co., Coleman Co. (part of Jarden Corp. ) and Master Lock Co. (part of Fortune Brands Home & Security Co.) all have said they’re returning some manufacturing to the United States. The list goes on.

WHAT IT MEANS FOR CONSUMERS 

While few companies will move production for patriotic reasons alone, the public relations boost that goes with a decision to bring jobs back to the United States is gravy.

“They run the numbers and say ‘We can deliver just as cheaply from a US operation as we can from, say, China.’ It has some nice extra benefits,” says Dan Seiver, chief economist for Reilly Financial Advisors, a wealth management firm in San Diego, California. “Whatever credit goes with it is fine”

With little pricing difference, the impact on US consumers might not be that obvious. But Simmermaker and other advocates also contend that products made in the United States are often higher-quality and safer than those made elsewhere.

There is a decided upside for the companies, too. Making products closer to their end-market allows them to be more nimble in terms of customizing and delivering products.

That was the case with Spreadshirt, a Germany-based custom shirt maker that recently opened a plant in Nevada to supplement the output of its existing facility in Pennsylvania.

In 2011, the company was running its Pennsylvania plant around the clock. To keep up with holiday demand, it was forced to send some work to a plant in Poland, said Mark Venezia, vice president of global sales and marketing for North America.

But the company quickly realized that the distance hurt overall costs and speed – to the tune of about $2 more per unit. “We didn’t lose money, but, obviously, it hurt our bottom line,” Venezia said.

Hunting for a new location led Spreadshirt to Henderson, Nevada, where facilities that met specifications were available at favorable terms, along with a pool of prospective workers.

“We just got this incredible deal that provided us so many benefits,” Venezia said.

 

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The new global demand for Made in USA

March 18, 2013 by Leave a comment

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By Francisco J. Sanchez

There’s no doubt about it: Doing business in America is changing. And businesses with even the most loyal customers are finding that their customers are changing, too. In an increasingly global marketplace, business owners across the United States are realizing that their next major customer may no longer come from across town, but beyond our borders.

While news of American exports may not capture the headlines as government shutdowns and political impasses do, the proof is in the thousands of regional businesses that are witnessing its value firsthand.

Not only did U.S. exports outpace the growth of imports in 2012 for the first time since 2007, exports have helped support creation of more than 6 million private sector jobs during the past 35 months. So how does this relate to the business climate here in Salt Lake City? Simple: Our nation’s success with exports has in part been driven by business owners in the Beehive State.

Take, for example, Albion Minerals of Clearfield. One year ago, the company participated in a trade mission to Vietnam that was organized by a collaboration of public and private sector groups, including the state government, the U.S. Commercial Service of Utah, and our strategic partner Zions Bank. The company has since opened a distribution center in Vietnam in a $100,000 deal and expects to see profits grow.

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Europeans want U.S. to Ditch “Buy American” Rules

March 13, 2013 by Leave a comment

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Obama keeps pushing a Trans Atlantic trade deal with Europe, despite the fact that other trade deals have helped make the trade deficit worse.

One of the goals for Europeans is to get rid of Buy American rules in the U.S.

In particular, the [European Union] wants to pry open so-called public procurement markets and scrap “Buy American” clauses that restrict the ability of European companies to sell goods and services to states and cities.

The U.S. public strongly believes their taxpayer dollars should be spent procuring from U.S. companies and workers.  A majority in Congress votes for Buy American rules in infrastructure and other bills.  Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-IL) and Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) have been leading the efforts recently.  How can a fiscal stimulus have an impact if we buy foreign goods with taxpayer money?  That’s one difference between the FDR stimulus of the Great Depression and the smaller Obama stimulus of the Great Recession… offshore leakage of the government spending.

It’s not surprising that Europe wants to replace U.S. businesses and workers in government contracts.  The U.S. federal government is the biggest consumer in the world… and when you add in the state and local governments, it’s really big.  From the U.S. side there is simply no way we’d come away with a net benefit with theoretical market access by our so-called “U.S.” multinationals (who don’t really consider themselves U.S. anymore) to other smaller government procurement markets.  It simply doesn’t ever work that way.

I’m not sure where the Obama Administration is coming from on this.  The biggest source of jobs and growth will come from reducing the trade deficit.  We had a record $735B goods trade deficit last year, including a $300B goods deficit with China.  Trade deals simply don’t help the trade deficit, usually make things worse, and tie our hands for fixing the problem.

 

Source: http://www.tradereform.org/2013/03/europeans-want-u-s-to-ditch-buy-american-rules/

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Stalling European factories and slowing China leave world economy looking to America

March 1, 2013 by Leave a comment

reuters

By Jonathan Cable and Koh Gui Qing | Reuters

European manufacturing appeared no closer to recovery last month while growth in Asia cooled, according to business surveys and trade data on Friday that pointed to ongoing weakness in global demand.

Purchasing managers’ reports from the United States due later, however, are expected to show growth picking up in the world’s largest economy, after a weak fourth quarter.

In China, factory growth slowed to multi-month lows. Sluggish domestic demand added pressure to already depressed foreign sales, two separate purchasing manager indexes (PMI) showed.

Worryingly for European Central Bank policymakers balancing the needs of 17 different economies, euro zone reports painted a picture of ongoing divergence, with a dire performance in France offsetting a return to growth in economic powerhouse Germany.

Markit’s Eurozone Manufacturing PMI was unchanged at January’s 47.9 last month, just pipping an earlier flash reading of 47.8, but holding below the 50 level that divides growth from contraction for the 19th month running.

Germany, Europe’s largest economy, and Ireland (OTC BB: IRLD - news) were the only two countries in the 17-nation bloc to see growth. PMIs from Spain and Italy showed activity in their factory sectors deteriorated again with the situation worsening in Italy.

The euro zone output index, which feeds into the Composite PMI, a broader gauge of the economy due out on Tuesday, sank to 47.8 from January’s 48.7.

“Most of it is driven by Germany. Germany has outperformed the rest of the euro zone for quite a while now and that divergence is going to persist,” said Evelyn Herman at BNP Paribas (Milan:BNP.MI - news) .

In other upbeat news German retail sales grew at the fastest monthly rate in more than six years in January, rebounding from a deep fall in December, confirming signs it has turned the corner after a dismal end to 2012.

But unemployment in the currency union hit a new high in January of 11.9 percent, official data showed, and the PMI data pointed to factories reducing headcount for the thirteenth month.

Some 44 out of 55 economists polled by Reuters said the European Central Bank would have to step in and buy bonds from its struggling members.

Inflation among the countries using the euro fell to 1.8 percent last month, according to official data released on Friday, below the ECB’s two percent target ceiling and giving them room to ease policy.

That said, only a handful of the 76 economists polled by Reuters this week predict the ECB will reduce rates from their current record low of 0.75 percent.

British manufacturing shrank unexpectedly in February and new orders dwindled, making it likely the sector will put a drag on economic growth in the first quarter in a country at risk of sinking into a triple-dip recession.

Chances are rising that the Bank of England will rekindle its asset purchase programme next week and the PMI data coupled with figures showing mortgage approvals for home buyers dropped in January will only increase those odds.

FRAGILE CHINA

China’s official PMI from the National Bureau of Statistics eased to 50.1 after seasonal adjustments in February, the weakest reading in five months and just above the 50-point level separating growth from contraction on a monthly basis.

A second PMI issued by HSBC (LSE: HSBA.L - news) fell to a 4-month low of 50.4 after seasonal adjustments, off January’s 2-year high and in line with a flash, or preliminary, reading late last month.

But the bigger-than-expected retreat in the purchasing managers’ indexes does not signal China’s economy is slipping into another slowdown, analysts said. Instead, they show China’s growth recovery this year would be mild, as widely expected.

The Lunar New Year holiday, China’s biggest annual holiday and widely observed across much of East Asia, fell in February this year making it harder to draw firm conclusions, even though the data was seasonally adjusted.

“Today’s data point to a stabilisation of economic activities in coming months, not a strong recovery of growth,” said Jian Chang, a Barclays (LSE: BARC.L - news) analyst.

Tim Condon, head of Asian economic research at ING in Singapore, argued China’s economic data in January and February has “a lot of noise” due to the festive season. “When it settles down we expect the data will reveal that industrial production is growing around 10 percent,” he said.

In South Korea, trade data showed a sharp fall in exports, while a PMI report from last year’s emerging market investor favourite Indonesia showed a slight improvement in manufacturing overall, but a fall in new export orders.

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What it Really Means to be Made in the USA

February 26, 2013 by Leave a comment

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You often hear companies touting their products as Made in America. Recently, DWM magazine looked at the Federal Trade Commission’s “Made in USA” Act which was designed to give the agency “the power to bring law enforcement actions against false or misleading claims that a product is of U.S. origin.” But other programs are in place as well to help consumers make informed decisions and this includes, Made in USA Certified®.

Made in USA Certified® is the only registered “Made in USA Certified” Word Mark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, according to the organization.

“When we say it’s ‘Made in USA,’ you can count on it,” says Julie Reiser, president and co-founder.

Any company bearing one of the USA-C™ seals has gone through a rigorous supply chain audit to ensure that the product and processes originate in the United States of America.

The designation is an independent certification system that applies proprietary audit criteria consistently across companies, and criteria are checked through the company’s supply chain. “The seal says the company has committed to American jobs and to the American economy,” says Reiser. “Displaying the seal gives consumers the option to visibly support products and services of the USA.”

The Earthwise Group LLC, a national network of locally owned, independent manufacturers of doors and windows, announced that the organization has recently been recognized as “Made in USA Certified.” The organization is the first and only door and window manufacturer to be Made in USA Certified, according to Earthwise.

Why did they do it? “Number one it’s the right thing to do,” says Mark Davis, executive director, the Earthwise Group. “We have to invest in the American economy, American worker and American jobs. If our economy is going to turn around we have to be more sensitive in investing, and that means ingesting in American products.”

He also says the consumer is more willing today to buy American.

“Due to the economic slowdown we feel that the American consumer is more motivated than ever to buy American products,” he adds. “They are beginning again to take pride in American made products and realize the benefits of that …. They have seen the result of ignoring investing in America.”

So why should other companies look at this program?

“The biggest thing I try to do is educate people that the claim of ‘Made in the USA’ is unregulated. There are so many companies just making that claim,” says Reiser. “The only way the consumer really knows is if the company does a supply chain audit .”

It’s completely different to say it than to prove it, she adds.

“It says a lot about a company’s willingness to remain transparent. For companies it’s a powerful branding tool to distinguish among those who may be making false claims,” says Reiser.

She also adds that purchasing dollars are going to support a U.S. manufacturer and create U.S. jobs “which is at the crux of our problems now.”

“One of the things this does for companies is it distinguishes them against those in their industry who may be making a false claim to gain market share,” she says. “If the company has legitimately gone through the process and awarded the seal that puts them head and shoulders above the competition.”

Source: http://www.dwmmag.com/index.php/what-it-really-means-to-be-made-in-the-usa/

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How Ending Currency Manipulation Will Help Manufacturers

February 26, 2013 by Leave a comment

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by 

Many American economists and policymakers believe that currency manipulation by U.S. trading partners such as Japan and Singapore – and especially China – creates a drag on the U.S. economy and depresses the country’s manufacturing sector.

Currency Manipulation

Currency manipulation by U.S. trading partners such as Japan and Singapore – and especially China – creates a drag on the U.S. economy and depresses the country’s manufacturing sector.

Currency manipulation involves artificially reducing the value of a country’s own currency, in effect providing a subsidy for national exports. Currency manipulators often buy U.S. treasury bonds to prevent their own currencies from strengthening. In the case of China, the country’s trade with the U.S. brings in an excess of U.S. dollars and would normally create a shortage of yuans. But to avoid the yuan’s appreciation and prop up its manufacturing sector, China buys up U.S. treasuries to keep the yuan out of currency exchange markets, thus maintaining an artificially low value.

About one out of every six U.S. private-sector jobs is in manufacturing, 17.2 million in total, according to the National Association of Manufacturers(NAM). However, manufacturing dominates when it comes to U.S. trade goods, accounting for 86 percent of exports in 2011, the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) says. So a U.S. trade deficit, exacerbated by currency manipulation, has a disproportionately negative effect on the manufacturing sector.

Robert E. Scott, Helen Jorgensen, and Doug Hall of the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) explain that reviving the crucial U.S. manufacturing sector “requires eliminating a jobs-destroying U.S. trade deficit in goods,” in large part by ending currency manipulation. Currency manipulation, the group says, “distorts international trade flows by artificially lowering the cost of U.S. imports and raising the cost of U.S. exports,” thereby displacing American manufacturing jobs.

Eliminating currency manipulation would reduce the U.S. trade goods deficit by at least $190 billion and as much as $400 billion over three years, allowing the U.S. to “reap enormous benefits” without any increase in federal spending or taxation. This would reduce U.S. unemployment by 1 to 2.1 percentage points and create between 2.2 million and 4.7 million jobs; between 620,000 and 1.3 million of those jobs would be in manufacturing. In addition, U.S. GDP would increase between 1.4 percent and 3.1 percent.

The Group of Seven (G7) top industrial nations is concerned that continued currency manipulation is creating dangerous instability in the global economy. The organization, which is comprised of the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the U.K., recently saidits members are committed to market-determined exchange rates and “will remain oriented towards meeting our respective domestic objectives using domestic instruments.”

The G7 affirmed that they “will not target exchange rates” – meaning they themselves refuse to be involved in currency manipulation. “We are agreed that excessive volatility and disorderly movements in exchange rates can have adverse implications for economic and financial stability,” the group declared.

Artificially lowering a country’s exchange rate can make its exports cheaper and promote growth internally, but that only causes problems for other countries because one currency can fall only if another rises. This imbalance, the EPI warns, “could spark a ‘currency war’ – a destabilizing battle where countries compete against one another to get the lowest exchange rate.” This scenario “conjures up images of the 1930s, when countries pursued tit-for-tat devaluations in order to get an edge… the outcome was to decimate global trade, accentuate the depression, and sow the seeds for World War II,” according to the institute.

 

Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM), argued that policymakers need to act now to prevent further harm from unfair trade practices.

“Congress is obsessed with the wrong deficit,” Paul said. “To grow jobs and boost the economy, we must eliminate the trade deficit. Ending currency manipulation will get us part of the way there, but we also need a smart manufacturing policy, one that focuses on innovation, public investment, skills, and trade enforcement.”

According to the EPI report, any U.S president could end currency manipulation with a stroke of the pen: “The president could simply declare that the United States will no longer sell Treasury bills and other government assets to China and other countries that refuse to allow the United States to purchase their government assets… Refusing to sell assets to currency manipulators would eliminate the principal tool used by foreign central banks to manipulate their currencies: purchases of Treasury bills and other government securities…”

Olli Rehn, top monetary affairs official for the European Commission (EC), told the Associated Press that joint governmental efforts are needed to fight the adverse effects of “excess volatility and disorderly movements” in exchange rates. “That’s why we need to lean on active international policy coordination in order to prevent a wave of competitive devaluations.”

 

 

Source: http://news.thomasnet.com/IMT/2013/02/26/how-ending-currency-manipulation-will-help-manufacturers/

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It’s Cool Again to be ‘Made in America’

February 18, 2013 by 1 Comment

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Advertising Age the new emerging market

Domestic Goods Are All the Rage — But Are They Good for the Bottom Line?

By:  Published: February 18, 2013

Not since the 1970s has “Made in America” been such a hot way to market your product.

On one end is Walmart‘s promise to buy an additional $50 billion in U.S.-made merchandise over the next decade; on the other are designers touting investments in New York’s shrinking garment district as a way to justify higher prices.

At the Financial Times’ New York Conference last month, Brunswick Group executive Susan Gilchrist said that Made in America is “not just about the PR opportunities. Purely from an economic view, China is losing its cost advantage.”

In 2001, the average hourly wage in China was 58¢, according to data from the Boston Consulting Group. By 2015, it will be $6. Combine that with the high productivity of American manufacturers and low energy costs, and the cost gap will close for most categories of goods to just 7% by 2015.

It’s making more business sense to manufacture in the U.S. But does it make marketing sense as the focus of a brand’s message?

In a September survey of more than 1,000 Americans by the Boston Consulting Group, more than 80% said they preferred U.S.-made goods, and that they would pay more for said goods. The same questions were asked of 1,000 Chinese consumers: 47% prefer Made in America.

Yet actions and sentiment are two different things: It often comes down to quality vs. a deal. When American-made goods deliver both, it works. “Consumers are starting to make a different tradeoff,” says Harold Sirkin, senior partner and managing director at BCG and author of the study. “Retailers are able to sell goods at a slight premium, but not too much.”

The push has support from celebrities such as Martha Stewart and Jay-Z. And American manufacturing is the raison d’etre of year-old ad agency Made Movement.

“Made in America will succeed for the same reason organic has succeeded,” said Dave Schiff, a founder of the shop. “Just like people didn’t want to eat food that was poisoning them, they want to live in a better economic climate.”

Made in America is nothing new for some brands. New Balance, American Apparel, Red Wing and Pendleton have been producing in the U.S. for years.

Others are making a push to sell more U.S.-made products. Apple recently announced it would bring some Mac production back to the U.S. And apparel brands like Club Monaco have launched lines and products marketed specifically as “Made in the USA.”

Walmart, meanwhile, sells more than $400 billion of goods each year, so some analysts say its commitment is meaningless when it comes to the bottom line. But Walmart spokesperson Randy Hargrove said that two-thirds of its products are “made here, sourced here, or grown here.” Most of that, of course, is food — Walmart is the nation’s largest grocer. This new batch of funds will help create jobs in areas where Walmart typically spends overseas, such as apparel, sporting equipment and furniture.

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Source: http://adage.com/article/news/cool-made-america/239846/?utm_source=daily_email&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=adage

To learn more about Made in USA Certification: http://www.USA-C.com

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China Passes U.S. to Become World’s Biggest Trading Nation

February 10, 2013 by 2 Comments

Bloomberg News

China surpassed the U.S. to become the world’s biggest trading nation last year as measured by the sum of exports and imports of goods, a milestone in the Asian nation’s challenge to the U.S. dominance in global commerce that emerged after the end of World War II.
U.S. exports and imports of goods last year totaled $3.82 trillion, the U.S. Commerce Department said last week. China’s customs administration reported last month that the country’s total trade in goods in 2012 amounted to $3.87 trillion.

China’s increasing influence threatens to disrupt regional trading blocs as it becomes the most important commercial partner for countries including Germany, which will export twice as much to China by the end of the decade as it does to neighboring France, said Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s Jim O’Neill.

“For so many countries around the world, China is becoming rapidly the most important bilateral trade partner,” O’Neill, chairman of Goldman Sachs’s asset management division and the economist who bound Brazil to Russia, India and China to form the BRIC investing strategy, said in a telephone interview. “At this kind of pace by the end of the decade many European countries will be doing more individual trade with China than with bilateral partners in Europe.”

When taking into account services, U.S. total trade amounted to $4.93 trillion in 2012, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. The U.S. recorded a surplus in services of $195.3 billion last year and a goods deficit of more than $700 billion, according to BEA figures. China’s 2012 trade surplus, measured in goods, totaled $231.1 billion.

The U.S. economy is also double the size of China’s, according to the World Bank. In 2011, the U.S. gross domestic product reached $15 trillion while China’s totaled $7.3 trillion. China’s National Bureau of Statistics reported Jan. 18 that the country’s nominal gross domestic product in 2012 totaled 51.93 trillion yuan ($8.3 trillion).

“It is remarkable that an economy that is only a fraction of the size of the U.S. economy has a larger trading volume,” Nicholas Lardy, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, said in an e-mail. “The surpassing of the U.S. is not because of a substantially undervalued currency that has led to an export boom,” said Lardy, noting that Chinese imports have grown more rapidly than exports since 2007.

The U.S. emerged as the preeminent trading power following World War II as it spearheaded the creation of the global trade and financial architecture and the U.K. began dismantling its colonial empire. China began focusing on trade and foreign investment to boost its economy after decades of isolation under Chairman Mao Zedong. Economic growth averaged 9.9 percent a year from 1978 through 2012.

China became the world’s biggest exporter in 2009, while the U.S. remains the biggest importer, taking in $2.28 trillion in goods last year compared with China’s $1.82 trillion of imports. HSBC Holdings Plc forecast last year that China would overtake the U.S. as the top trading nation by 2016.

China was last considered the leading economy during the height of the Qing dynasty. The difference is that in the 18th century, the Qing Empire — unlike rising Britain — didn’t focus on trade. The Emperor Qianlong told King George III in a 1793 letter that “we possess all things. I set no value on objects strange or ingenious, and I have no use for your country’s manufactures.”

While China is the biggest energy user, has the world’s biggest new car market and the largest foreign currency reserves, a significant portion of China’s trade involves importing raw materials and parts to be assembled into finished products and re-exported, an activity that provides “only modest value added,” Eswar Prasad, a former International Monetary Fund official who is now a professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, said in an e-mail.

Last month China’s trade expanded more than estimated, with exports rising 25 percent from a year earlier and imports increasing 28.8 percent, government data released yesterday showed. China’s trade figures in January and February are distorted by the week-long Lunar New Year holiday that fell in January of last year and started yesterday.
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Made in America, Again

January 23, 2013 by Leave a comment

Why Manufacturing Will Return to the U.S.

By:Harold L. Sirkin, Michael Zinser, and Douglas Hohner

Made in America

 

For more than a decade, deciding where to build a manufacturing plant to supply the world was simple for many companies. With its seemingly limitless supply of low-cost labor and an enormous, rapidly developing domestic market, an artificially low currency, and significant government incentives to attract foreign investment, China was the clear choice.

Now, however, a combination of economic forces is fast eroding China’s cost advantage as an export platform for the North American market. Meanwhile, the U.S., with an increasingly flexible workforce and a resilient corporate sector, is becoming more attractive as a place to manufacture many goods consumed on this continent. An analysis by The Boston Consulting Group concludes that, by sometime around 2015—for many goods destined for North American consumers—manufacturing in some parts of the U.S. will be just as economical as manufacturing in China. The key reasons for this shift include the following:

  • Wage and benefit increases of 15 to 20 percent per year at the average Chinese factory will slash China’s labor-cost advantage over low-cost states in the U.S., from 55 percent today to 39 percent in 2015, when adjusted for the higher productivity of U.S. workers. Because labor accounts for a small portion of a product’s manufacturing costs, the savings gained from outsourcing to China will drop to single digits for many products.
  • For many goods, when transportation, duties, supply chain risks, industrial real estate, and other costs are fully accounted for, the cost savings of manufacturing in China rather than in some U.S. states will become minimal within the next five years.
  • Automation and other measures to improve productivity in China won’t be enough to preserve the country’s cost advantage. Indeed, they will undercut the primary attraction of outsourcing to China—access to low-cost labor.
  • Given rising income levels in China and the rest of developing Asia, demand for goods in the region will increase rapidly. Multinational companies are likely to devote more of their capacity in China to serving the domestic Chinese as well as the larger Asian market, and to bring some production work for the North American market back to the U.S.
  • Manufacturing of some goods will shift from China to nations with lower labor costs, such as Vietnam, Indonesia, and Mexico. But these nations’ ability to absorb the higher-end manufacturing that would otherwise go to China will be limited by inadequate infrastructure, skilled workers, scale, and domestic supply networks, as well as by political and intellectual-property risks. Low worker productivity, corruption, and the risk to personal safety are added concerns in some countries.

This reallocation of global manufacturing is in its very early phases. It will vary dramatically from industry to industry, depending on labor content, transportation costs, China’s competitive strengths, and the strategic needs of individual companies. But we believe that it will become more pronounced over the next five years, especially as companies face decisions about where to add future capacity. While China will remain an important manufacturing platform for Asia and Europe, the U.S. will become increasingly attractive for the production of many goods sold to consumers in North America.

This report, the first in a series, examines the economic trends that point to a U.S. manufacturing renaissance. It also explores the strategic implications of the shifting cost equation for companies engaged in global sourcing.

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Manufacturers and businesses struggle to find skilled workers

December 11, 2012 by Leave a comment

Skilled Workers

Job seekers attend a Career Source mixed-industry job fair at the Holiday Inn in Somerville on Nov. 27, 2012.

BOSTON — Dozens of people walked around a recent Somerville job fair handing out resumes. There was Jim Lundy, 53, an English teacher with a Ph.D. and 30 years of experience. When he could not find a teaching job, he started a business that sells used blue jeans, but has been unsuccessful. There was Isabel Sendao, 38, who lost her job in marketing and sales a year and a half ago and is keeping current on the latest technology while interviewing for jobs. There was Sandy Carr, 51, who worked at non-profit and social service jobs for three decades. She was laid off when a medical billing firm went under and has been doing temporary and contract work until she can find something full-time.

“Job searching’s a constant thing to be doing these days,” Carr said.

At the same time, there are businesses in Massachusetts looking for workers. Denise Petersen, who works in human resources for B&E Precision Aircraft Components in Southwick, said her company is looking for computer numerically controlled machinists and burr hands, a type of skilled laborer. The company is competing with other local tool companies and having a hard time finding workers with the necessary skills. “As experienced or skilled workers leave, it’s getting more difficult to find people in those areas that have experience,” Petersen said.

The “skills gap” is a fact of life in the recovering economy. Jobs are opening up and workers are seeking them. But the unemployed workers do not always have the same skills that employers are looking for. In some cases, industries have shifted during the recession, some recovering faster than others. In other cases, the recession actually delayed the skills gap, as older workers pushed off retirement. With the recovery, some of those workers are preparing to leave.

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Filed under Aerospace, Business, Defense, Economy, Education, Industry, Jobs, Technology, U.S. Jobs Project Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

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