Is a manufacturing supercycle on the way?
“We believe the U.S. is in the early stages of a manufacturing supercycle,” wrote Joseph P. Quinlan, head of CIO market strategy at Merrill and Bank of America Private Bank.
The term “manufacturing supercycle” caught my attention. At the Reshoring Institute, we’ve been reporting on robust growth across all manufacturing sectors in America, particularly since the pandemic ended. The pandemic was a real eye-opener for manufacturers and the risks of long global supply chains. Companies struggled to cope with the open-closed-open-closed cycle of factories in China, delayed shipments, and canceled orders. As a result, many companies started rethinking their worldwide manufacturing locations, including considering bringing manufacturing back to America. What we are seeing is slow, steady growth in the reshoring of manufacturing and sourcing.
So why are analysts suggesting we are entering a manufacturing supercycle? These analysts and economists are reacting to where investment dollars are going, and now the money is going to U.S. manufacturers, after nearly 30 years of underinvestment. The U.S. government’s investment dollars are coming from the three enormous funding bills passed by Congress in the past two years. The Inflation Reduction Act, the Chips and Sciences Act, and the Infrastructure Act are pumping billions of dollars into new projects in America.
