- Joined
- Aug 9, 2010
- Location
- Coral Springs, Florida
Interesting story today in WSJ. Apparently there seems to be a shift among manufacturers of bringing manufacturing back to the United States. This trend is slowly developing as the wage increases in China starts to negate the cost savings from manufacturing there (wages apparently increased 15% there over the year). One example is a furniture company that is bringing the manufacturing back to North Carolina due to the wage increases in China, the cost of logistics etc. Another factor is the willingness of unions to accept lower wages to be more competitive with the other labor markets. This played out in the Ford decision to hire about 7,000 more workers and move some of the manufacturing back here (I think the total number will be around 12,000 jobs over the next few years).
As China moves from an emerging market to a developed nation we can probably expect the workers to demand more wages as they move into the middle class and we can likely expect them to start facing the same issues we have been faced with as a developed nation. This by itself may level the playing field and end up being a big boost for our eceonomy in terms of exports to the growing middle class. Hopefully it plays out that way but at least we are seeing some movement in the right direction.
As China moves from an emerging market to a developed nation we can probably expect the workers to demand more wages as they move into the middle class and we can likely expect them to start facing the same issues we have been faced with as a developed nation. This by itself may level the playing field and end up being a big boost for our eceonomy in terms of exports to the growing middle class. Hopefully it plays out that way but at least we are seeing some movement in the right direction.