Points Of Interest: Reshoring Manufacturing Jobs
By Bob Williamson, CMRP, CPMM, MIAM, Editor
Bringing manufacturing jobs back to the United States from overseas makes sense for products, commodities, and other materials considered essential to our national defense, social wellbeing, and economic survival.
As I had stated in a previous article, according to the Reshoring Initiative, over 1,800 companies, employing 224,000 people are projected for U.S. reshoring and foreign direct investment (FDI) in 2021.
Plus, 80% of those jobs are projected to involve high- and medium-high technology, outpacing those involving low- and medium-low-technology
Southern States Are
Attractive
Let's look at states where a high percentage of jobs have been or are
being reshored. With the addition of Texas,
half are in the Southeast and on major transportation corridors.
What’s significant about this region when it comes to reshoring and FDI in the area of manufacturing should be an eye-opener for any state recruiting such businesses. And for RAM pros everywhere. (More on that later.)
States in the cited region are home to numerous “Work Ready Communities." And they are also quite aggressive with incentives for recruited companies. Consider four of these states:
1. North Carolina saw the most reshored and FDI companies (68), in the first half of 2021 (with an average of 83 jobs per company). What’s also interesting is the fact that 6% of the state's population is enrolled in Career Technical Programs (CTE) in high school and community colleges/technical schools
2. Texas is similar to North Carolina,
with 6% of its population enrolled in CTE programs. It recruited 39 reshored and FDI businesses to the state in the first half of 2021 (with an average of 89 jobs per company).
3. Tennessee reflected a somewhat
different trend with 49 reshored and FDI companies in the first half of 2021 (with an average of 206 jobs per company). Note: Although only 3% of Tennessee's population is enrolled in CTE programs, the size of recruited companies typically indicates a commitment to training a local workforce with the state’s assistance.
4. Alabama recruited 12 reshored and
FDI companies to the state in the first half of 2021 (with an average of 436 jobs per company). Boasting one of the lowest unemployment rates in the U.S. (3.3% in June 2021), Alabama has over 4% of its population enrolled in CTE programs.
BTW: The top five (on the top-10 list
of) reshored and FDI industries and their numbers of projected U.S. jobs in 2021
are: transportation equipment (54,972 jobs); chemicals (37,233 jobs); computer &
electronic products (36,635 jobs); medical equipment & supplies (28,086 jobs); and electrical equipment, appliances & components (13,762 jobs).
The remainder of
that list includes: machinery (14,002 jobs); primary metals products (5,632 jobs); food & beverage (5,589 jobs); fabricated metal products (1,762 jobs); and apparel & textiles (1,102 jobs).
Of Interest To All
As noted early in this newsletter column, these statistics on manufacturing related reshoring and FDI should not just be of interest to states (including their governors, legislators, economic developers, career- and technical-education programmers, and other entities). There are several good reasons why.
First, jobs really are coming back to the United
States. Second, jobs tend to return to states that have robust CTE programs and/or a strong commitment to technical training infrastructure. Third, data is showing that recently reshored and FDI companies were not primarily large manufacturers, as many assumed. Smaller, entrepreneurial or boutique manufacturers are also finding new homes in the USA.
Some of the best news, though, is that all of these businesses rely on skilled workers for their high- and medium-high technology jobs. And that means they all need strong RAM professionals in their ranks.
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Even the most well-thought-through maintenance-improvement plan will falter if a site's technicians don't back it. As this article notes, though, some of the best ideas for change will come from them.
LEST YOU MISSED IT ELSEWHERE
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"Where Are The Workers?" That is the title of (and question posed by) a newly posted
Manufacturing.net article. The three authors (from the Associated Press) did a good job in exploring the deepening mystery at the heart of today's dysfunctional job market: why labor shortages have lasted longer than many economists expected.
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