US manufacturing is coming back home, from China and elsewhere. The trend started five years ago; since early 2010, it’s created more than half a million jobs in America.
By 2015, the Boston Consulting Group estimates, US industrial firms will add 800,000 more jobs — jobs that aren’t going to China, but staying right here.
Call it Rising Eagle, Flailing Dragon.
Investment money has stopped flowing into China since last September; since April, it’s actually been leaving the country, as China’s manufacturing sector has registered seven straight months of decline — while ours (despite a sharp contraction last month) stands 8 percent higher than it was before the recession.
“Made in China” may be going the same way as “Made in Japan” did a couple of decades ago. Yes, China will still produce plenty, just as Japan does — but it won’t be an issue.
And China is going to have to import more of the goods its consumers crave but can’t get at home. By 2020, in fact, it may be the Chinese Olympic team that’s buying its uniforms in the United States.
The back-to-America trend is called “reshoring” — and it’s replacing outsourcing, fast. From steel and computers to furniture, plastics, clothing and rubber, there’s a $2 trillion-a-year US market for manufactured goods, and American companies are finding plenty of reasons to tap into it directly from here.
