Ride the Wave of Reshoring - 5 Things to Consider Now

Once considered the “workshop of the world,” China now seems to be losing its cache as an unstoppable manufacturing powerhouse. Rising costs in China are forcing manufacturers to relocate their operations elsewhere to even lower cost labor countries such as Vietnam and Indonesia. For some companies such as Apple and GE, some production is moving back to its roots: the United States.

Even the US government and individual State governments are offering incentives and encouraging companies to consider reshoring. During the January 2013 State of the Union Address, President Obama announced the White House Initiative to support reshoring projects by US manufacturers. The camera panned Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, as President Obama described what Apple is doing to re-­‐create domestic manufacturing jobs.

“As the consumer electronic world was never in America, it’s not about bringing it back, but starting it here.” said Apple CEO, Tim Cook. Mr. Cook proudly announced the return of manufacturing to the US, stating that some Apple products, such as the Mac lines, will be manufactured solely in the US in 2013.

The U.S. manufacturing sector has added 430,000 jobs since 2010; a small trickle of what we need to recover, but still a move in the right direction. Companies that are reshoring include some of the nation’s largest manufacturers: General Electric, Ford, Caterpillar and NCR. A 2012 study concluded that reshoring could add 2 million to 3 million jobs and an estimated $100 billion in annual output to a range of industries by the year 2015.