This article written by Adam Robinson originally appeared on the Cerasis blog on June 24, 2015
Future Outlook of Reshoring in America
Jobs & The Slow Movement of Reshoring
Notwithstanding many sound reasons for reshoring, an Information Technology and Innovation Foundation report indicates that U.S. manufacturing is not experiencing a "renaissance". Industry experts conservatively acknowledge that off-shoring has slowed, and perhaps "stabilized". Although around 80,000 manufacturing jobs have come back to the U.S. in the past 3 years, (about 60% from China), per research by BCG and others, there's no indication that a great number of additional jobs will soon return from Mexico and China.
In fact, since the recession, more manufacturing companies have been lost than gained in the U.S. There were 10% fewer manufacturers in 2011 than in 2008—a record low since 1977, when the Census Bureau started collecting Business Dynamics data. And, the labor force was 35% smaller in those days. Manufacturing has gained 700,000 jobs since 2010. However, there are a million fewer manufacturing jobs than in 2008. Job gains are largely due to increasing consumer demand, not to reshoring production back to the U.S. Productivity in factories continues to improve, however, and are more efficient than ever, so the best jobs picture we can hope for is flat as we don't believe that US Manufacturing jobs will ever be at the percentage they were at the peak in the late 70s.
