U.S. Manufacturing Employment Increases

The Department of Labor’s January Economic News Release showed non-farm employment increased by 257,000, with unemployment at 5.7 percent. Most importantly, manufacturing employment was up 22,000 in January, almost 100,000 in the last three months, 343,000 year-over-year and 870,000 since the employment recession low in February 2010.

When compared to the 10-year, 1,927,000 decline in manufacturing employment, this announcement is good news and is consistent with the reshoring trend getting started
and offshoring slowing in 2010.

Data from the Reshoring Initiative, an organization committed to helping manufacturers recognize the profit potential of utilizing local sourcing and production, shows that reshoring plus foreign direct investment (FDI) added a record 50,000 to 60,000
manufacturing jobs in 2014 and that in January 2015 U.S. manufacturing employment is
above the trend line of the last 15 years.

Harry Moser, the founder and president of the Reshoring Initiative, cautioned, “The recent
unprecedented rise in the USD and the potential impact of the Trans-Pacific Partnership
(TPP), absent strong control of currency manipulation, threaten this positive trend for
manufacturing and reshoring.”

Companies can help improve manufacturing employment by consistently utilizing
advanced metrics for supply chain sourcing decisions. The Reshoring Initiative’s Total
Cost of Ownership (TCO) Estimator is the best-known publically available tool for this
purpose. It allows users to easily determine the total cost of offshoring by accounting for
and understanding the relevant offshoring costs, which include inventory carrying costs,
shipping expenses, intellectual property risks and more.

A 47-year manufacturing industry veteran and retired president of GF AgieCharmilles, Moser founded the Reshoring Initiative to move lost jobs back to the United States. www.reshorenow.org