Reshoring and Nearshoring of jobs has meet the US has seen a net increase of 10,000 US manufacturing jobs in 2014 according to the Reshoring Initiative. One of the most startling findings shows that in the past five years, almost 25% of manufactures of have reshored at least part of their operations to their home countries.
According to the Colliers International report, US companies seem to be leading the trend for reshoring, prompted by the following considerations:
- Increases in labor costs in emerging economies
- Transportation costs
- Lead times
- Currency appreciation in emerging economies
- Higher productivity in western markets
- Decreasing energy costs in western markets
- Intellectual property and patent protection
- Brand image
- Technological advancements, including robotics
We see this trend in our own business where we have been designing and building new automation to improve processes before the are introduced back to North American factories. Companies are not interested in bringing back the current labor intensive processes but in designing new processes that automate workflows.
