What It Takes to Reshore Manufacturing Successfully

The data on comparative labor and energy costs may seem compelling. But the process of bringing assembly work back to domestic factories from abroad is substantially more challenging than the economics alone would predict.

Willy C. Shih

Fall 2014

Rising labor costs in China and other emerging economies, high supply chain and logistics costs, and wide differentials in the costs for electricity and natural gas in different parts of the world are provoking a fresh round of relocation of manufacturing and production. While some labor-intensive jobs are moving out of China to Southeast Asia or the next emerging low-cost regions, some high-profile manufacturing work is returning to the United States, ...