In 2013, Hessaire, a cooling machine and fan blade manufacturer, took control of a large shuttered factory in Holly Pond, Alabama. The space once housed a jeanswear company in the rural town of about 800 people. Before the facility first closed in 2010, it was one of the area’s largest employers.
But just as the closing left a mark on the community, so too has the re-opening, creating dozens of jobs — jobs that were once more than 8,000 miles away in China.
Between 2000 and 2009, close to 6 million manufacturing jobs were lost, many to a practice known as “offshoring,” or moving a business’s production or services abroad.
Hessaire’s decision to bring some jobs back to the U.S. was based on a confluence of factors, according to president Jerry Fan. Rising labor costs in China and increased shipping costs played a role. Fan said when customers place an order, they want a short delivery window. By shipping products from China, “you’re adding weeks, and it’s hard to time,” he said. “The variability of a container can take three weeks or it can take six months.”
Manufacturers like Hessaire are part of a growing move to “re-shore” manufacturing jobs that were once lost to countries such as China and Mexico. The Reshoring Initiative, a group that focuses on bringing manufacturing jobs back to the U.S., estimates that between 2009 and 2016 more than 250,000 jobs were created or brought to the U.S. from other countries.
