Reinventing high-tech jobs due to supply chain pain

According to a new report by the Reshoring Initiative, a lobby group that has been tracking this since 2010, manufacturing jobs are returning to the US.

Global manufacturing and logistics have seen many setbacks recently, there is the pandemic that has repeatedly closed factories in China to encourage the movement back to the US, fires and floods have done the same in Japan and Thailand. There was a ship stuck in the Suez Canal. Add to that the ever-increasing shipping costs.

John Gray, an operations professor at Ohio State, said: “This recall sticks with all these challenges that companies face, and they try to shorten the supply chain as much as possible.” University.

A shorter chain means less room for error and uncertainty. But this security has a high value, so it is not worth it for every company.

“Products that are highly labor-intensive, relatively easy to export, and not a major national security or intellectual property threat will likely stay in low-cost countries for a while,” Gray said.

The US is not a leader in the production of clothing or toys. But it is also finding jobs in high-tech manufacturing such as semiconductors and electric vehicle batteries. David Simci Levy, a data scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says tensions between the U.S. and China and laws like the CHIPS and SCIENCE Act and the Depreciation Act encourage manufacturing in that country.

“Companies are willing to invest now,” said Simchi-Levi. “I think this is here to stay.”

So what does this mean for American workers? The 350,000 added jobs may not seem like a lot. But Susan Hausman, an economist at the Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, says it’s equivalent to 3% of U.S. manufacturing.

“So if that translates into net employment, that’s no small thing,” she said.

What makes it so small is that these good and middle-class jobs are reserved for people who don’t necessarily have a college education.