![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
ALABAMA IS THE NEW CHINA
ITEM: Within the next five years, the US will experience a manufacturing renaissance as the wage gap with China shrinks and certain US states (specifically, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Alabama) become some of the cheapest locations for manufacturing in the developed world.
That’s according to a new analysis by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG).
A key quote:
By which I assume they’re talking about things like, say, govt initiatives to weaken collective bargaining power for unions (though I’m not sure how true it is that unions are willing to make those kinds of trade-offs to bring jobs back, especially ones that are paying lower these days, but I might be reading it wrong).
Anyway, all this means that thanks to weak unions, wage cuts and Chinese workers getting paid more, by 2015 it’ll be cheaper (or at least the same cost) to manufacture stuff in the US.
Unless you count Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand, maybe, but as some commenters at BoingBoing have pointed out, there’s also the cost of shipping to export the stuff made overseas.
I don’t have the economic chops to evaluate how accurate BCG’s research is, or whether this is ultimately a good or bad thing. I’m mainly posting this because, as a native of the American South, I find it grimly amusing that Alabama, Mississippi and North Carolina could become what China is now: a cheap, unionless manufacturing sweatshop haven.
Only without the no-suicide work contracts.
Progress!
Made in the USA,
This is dF
That’s according to a new analysis by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG).
A key quote:
“Workers and unions are more willing to accept concessions to bring jobs back to the U.S.,” noted Michael Zinser, a BCG partner who leads the firm’s manufacturing work in the Americas. “Support from state and local governments can tip the balance.”
By which I assume they’re talking about things like, say, govt initiatives to weaken collective bargaining power for unions (though I’m not sure how true it is that unions are willing to make those kinds of trade-offs to bring jobs back, especially ones that are paying lower these days, but I might be reading it wrong).
Anyway, all this means that thanks to weak unions, wage cuts and Chinese workers getting paid more, by 2015 it’ll be cheaper (or at least the same cost) to manufacture stuff in the US.
Unless you count Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand, maybe, but as some commenters at BoingBoing have pointed out, there’s also the cost of shipping to export the stuff made overseas.
I don’t have the economic chops to evaluate how accurate BCG’s research is, or whether this is ultimately a good or bad thing. I’m mainly posting this because, as a native of the American South, I find it grimly amusing that Alabama, Mississippi and North Carolina could become what China is now: a cheap, unionless manufacturing sweatshop haven.
Only without the no-suicide work contracts.
Progress!
Made in the USA,
This is dF