Reshoring Is More than a Buzzword – Forbes

For as long as I can remember, the media have been criticized for their near-obsessive focus on bad news. It’s almost as if they’re wearing blinders. The criticism, at least some of the time, would appear to be well deserved.

For a ready example, contrast the amount of coverage that “offshoring” (the export of U.S. manufacturing jobs to mostly low-wage countries overseas) and “reshoring” (the return of overseas manufacturing to the U.S.) receive.

A recent Google Google news search produced around 19,000 offshoring stories and fewer than 7,500 stories on reshoring. But the ratio of coverage doesn’t paint an accurate picture of what’s happening on the ground. The data shows that U.S. factories have become more competitive in recent years; offshoring is fading and reshoring is making gains.

In truth, of course, offshoring and reshoring aren’t either-or phenomena. You don’t have one or the other; you have both occurring simultaneously. Just as textile manufacturing started shifting from the Northeast to the South – from the Rustbelt to the Sunbelt – in the 1950s, and consumer electronics from the U.S. to Asia in the 1960s and ‘70s, the process is ongoing.

What should be important to the media and the bean counters who obsess about job losses and job gains is the net – and what should be significant to the rest of us are the trend lines and the reasons that investments and jobs shift from one locale to another.

First, consider the net. According to the Reshoring Initiative, an industry-funded group established in 2010 by Harry Moser, chairman emeritus of GF Machining Solutions, the combination of reshoring and foreign direct investment brought some 60,000 manufacturing jobs to the U.S. last year. At the same time, the group estimates, only 30,000 to 50,000 jobs were offshored last year, for a net gain of at least 10,000 U.S. jobs.