Bringing Manufacturing Home to America

I came across a pointer to this article from the New York Times:
www.nytimes.com/2013/09/20/business/us-textile-factories-return.html?pagewanted=all

The story is that a fair amount of manufacturing that fled the United States between 2000 and 2009 is quietly coming back because it actually makes business sense to manufacture close to the customers. Low wages in Asia does not always translate to higher profit margins, for several reasons:
- the lower wage expense may be balanced by higher transportation costs
- merchandise subject to fashion's vagaries may be obsolete by the time the design gets sent to Asia and the goods get shipped back.
- the cheap manufacturing plants in Asia may not share your understanding of what "a quality product" is.

So even in Textiles, which was considered the premier example of a labor-intensive business that HAD to move off-shore, some jobs are coming back. But in returning, they have changed.
- there are fewer jobs now. Instead of 1000 workers in the plant, there may be 100, assisted by robots
- the jobs are not the same jobs: Rather than low-skilled mill workers (high school dropouts) they are machinists, mechanics and programmers that can maintain the robots.

Interesting reading!