China labour costs push jobs back to US: 3 million jobs by 2020.

[dkf]

Rising Chinese labour costs are changing the economics of global manufacturing and could contribute to the creation of 3m jobs in the US by 2020, according to a study being released on Friday.

The Boston Consulting Group analysis says the new jobs will be generated by a “re-shoring” of manufacturing activity lost to China over the past decade.

“Re-shoring is part of a broad trend that will emerge as ... production gradually swings back to the US,” Hal Sirkin, a senior partner at the consultancy, told the Financial Times.

The Boston Consulting Group estimates that the trend could cut the US’s merchandise trade deficit with the rest of the world, excluding oil, from $360bn in 2010 to about $260bn by the end of the decade. The shift would also reduce its soaring deficit with China, which reached $273bn in 2010 and has triggered an intense political controversy over China’s exchange rate policies.

“While Chinese labour costs are rising, US competitiveness has been improving,” says Mei Xu, the Chinese-born co-owner of Chesapeake Bay Candle, which makes candles and other home fragrance products. “We can invest in automation to make our candles in a factory near Baltimore for a similar cost to doing the same job in China.”

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/e5b774ca-f037-11e0-96d2-00144feab49a.html?ftcamp=rss#axzz1a3zpSiGt

[AverageJoe90]

1. Sounds good........

It would be even better if the Chinese companies were to simply go out of business as well as losing jobs to the U.S. :evilgrin:
(American companies whose CEOs happen to be Chinese won't be an issue, though.)

[DavidDvorkin]

2. I hope there's a Democrat in the White House to get credit for those jobs.

[dkf]

4. Obama should try to push them a little faster. He still has a year.

[LonePirate]

3. Makes sense as the US is on its way to being a third world country and China to first world status

The US will soon have the cheapest and highly educated workforce anywhere in the world.

[lbrtbell]

5. It'll happen AFTER they break the backs of unions

That way, the corporations will be paying Americans less than Chinese/Indian workers are paid, AND won't have to shell out cash to import the products.

That's why we have to stop them from breaking the unions.

[quaker bill]

6. There is no need to break the unions

read the op. The bottom line is that our industrial robots are now getting cheaper than their manual labor. Robots don't join unions. This is the reason China has kept their currency devalued, they have long understood automation to be the real threat. They have large numbers of people who need jobs, and as long as large numbers of unskilled laborers are cheaper than robots, they have the advantage. Once that equation goes upside down, they are in a world of hurt. Our robots are faster, but the initial investment is large, however once the mortgage payments on that investment becomes lower than wages for similar production (a pretty low figure), their business model is hosed.