Current Practices in Offshoring and Reshoring

Introduction¹

Counter to offshoring trends of the past 20 years, where the popular press focused on the movement of US manufacturing to low-cost countries, considerable attention has been given more recently to the possibility that US manufacturers are returning their production facilities to the US or moving to different foreign locations. There are numerous reasons behind this shift. In some cases, companies simply did not do a comprehensive enough analysis of the true costs and benefits of offshoring their manufacturing.² While many companies initially offshored primarily to leverage lower labor and overhead costs, labor and logistics costs are on the rise in many regions, and access to funding is becoming increasingly difficult.³

The 2008 ...