According to a new report, more than 60,000 manufacturing jobs were brought to the USA last year by a combination of re-shoring and foreign direct investment (FDI).
The Reshoring Initiative — an organisation committed to helping manufacturers recognise the profit potential of using local sourcing and production — said that this represents
a 400% increase since 2003.
Up to 50,000 jobs were offshored to other countries in 2014, but the organisation said that “the resulting net gain of 10,000 or more jobs represents a shift in the right direction”. In 2003, the USA lost about 140,000 manufacturing jobs to offshoring, according to the report.
According to Reshoring Initiative president Harry Moser, companies say that they are returning to the USA due to “government incentives, the skilled workforce, capitalising on the value of a Made in USA label, and automation”.
They also cite “lower quality, long lead times, high freight costs and rising wages” as reasons to stop offshoring. Re-shoring was strongest in the South East of the country and Texas. “Much of this is attributed to the trend for companies to build ‘green-field’ factories in states with lower wages and lower taxes,” says Mr Moser.
Along with the number of manufacturing jobs lost to offshoring and the reasons cited for re-shoring, the report provides data and analysis in 13 different categories, broken down by industry, country, region and state.
“We publish this data annually to show companies that the trend in US manufacturing is to source domestically. With three to four million manufacturing jobs still offshore, we see huge potential for even more re-shoring, and we hope that this data will motivate more companies to re-evaluate their sourcing and siting decisions.”