Economy

Reshoring Initiative: 1,389 Companies, 145,000 Jobs Returned to U.S. in 2018

May 22, 2019

Last year, the number of companies reporting new reshoring and foreign direct investment (FDI) jumped by 38 percent over 2017, accounting for 145,000 new jobs in the U.S. The total number of manufacturing jobs brought to the U.S. from offshore is now over 757,000 since the manufacturing employment low of 2010, reports the Reshoring Initiative, a nonprofit whose mission is to assist companies in bringing good manufacturing jobs back to the United States.

Allowing for a two-year lag from announcement to hire, the cumulative announcements since 2010 have driven 31 percent of the total increase in U.S. manufacturing jobs during that period and 3.3 percent of total end-of-2018 manufacturing employment of 12.8 million. The Reshoring Initiative largely attributes the increases to greater U.S. competitiveness due to corporate tax and regulatory cuts. Similar to the previous few years, FDI continued to exceed reshoring in terms of total jobs added, but reshoring has closed most of the gap since 2015.

The Reshoring Initiative’s 2018 Reshoring Report contains data on U.S. reshoring and FDI by companies that have shifted production or sourcing from offshore to the United States. The report includes cumulative data from 2010 through 2018, as well as projections for 2019. The numbers demonstrate that reshoring and FDI are major contributing factors to the country’s rebounding manufacturing sector.

“We publish this data annually to show companies that their peers are successfully reshoring and that they should reevaluate their sourcing and siting decisions,” said Harry Moser, founder and president of the Reshoring Initiative. “With five million manufacturing jobs still offshore, as measured by our $800 billion per year goods trade deficit, there is potential for much more growth. We call on the administration and Congress to enact policy changes to make the United States competitive again. Our Competitiveness Toolkit is available to help quantify the impact of policy alternatives, including a stronger skilled workforce, continued corporate tax and regulatory reductions as well as a lower U.S. dollar.”

A Deeper Dive into the 2018 Reshoring Data

Reshoring and FDI have driven 31 percent of the total increase in U.S. manufacturing jobs since 2010 and 3.3 percent of total U.S. manufacturing employment as of 12/31/18.
Reshoring from China accounts for 59 percent of all reshoring.
Although China topped Germany for the greatest number of FDI jobs announced since 2010, China announced 12 percent fewer in 2018 than in 2017.
Quality, freight cost and total cost make up the top offshore drivers of the trend.
Proximity to market, government incentives, supply chain optimization, higher productivity, skilled workforce, and brand image/made in USA serve as the top domestic drivers.
Reshoring has been increasing at a similar rate as FDI, indicating that U.S. headquartered companies are starting to understand the U.S. production benefit that foreign companies have seen for the last few years.

For further details, read the complete report–Reshoring Initiative 2018 Data Report: Second Highest Year on Record.