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This really reminds me of The Alantic article this month entitled "The Insourcing Boom": http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/12/the-insourcing-boom
by rohansingh 14y ago
This really reminds me of The Alantic article this month entitled "The Insourcing Boom": http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/12/the-insourcing-boom/309166/ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/12/the-inso...
The idea being that manufacturing was pushed abroad due to the appeal of cheaper labor, without a deep consideration of hidden costs or the overall context of such a transition.
GE, which is featured extensively in the article, actually managed to reduce manufacturing costs by bringing the fabrication of a water heater and other appliances back to American shores — largely due to the faster loop and better communication between designers, engineers, and laborers who all speak the same language and are in the same factory.
- alanctgardner2 14y agoHN discussion on that article: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4873542 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4873542
- thedaveoflife 14y agoAlso due perhaps to real wages in the US declining to the point where cost/benefit calculations of US based production facilities are finally starting to add up for some manufacturers.
- matthavener 14y agoAnd wages increasing in China
- bduerst 14y agoAnd not to mention 2012 is when there were new minimum wages for Malaysia and other SE Asia countries. It's made manufacturers seriously consider Africa as a low-wage manufacturer, but unlike some of the Asian countries, they do not have the political stability to enforce contracts.
- matwood 14y agoManufacturing leaving the US in mass was always a myth. The jobs went away because of automation. In some cases the cheap labor offshore was still cheaper than automation, but like most technology automation continues to get cheaper every year while cost of labor goes up. As automation gets cheaper I expect more and more manufacturing that really did move to not just come back to the US, but also new manufacturing to set up shop. Shipping costs are expensive and it only makes sense to be as close to your customers as possible. The one exception to this trend will be manufacturing that is inherently 'dirty.' Those will continue to be overseas until countries like China decide that destroying their environment for a short term gain isn't a very good long term strategy.
- tomjen3 14y agoShipping an iMac cost nothing -- yes the boats guzzle up fuel like crazy, but 400 20' containers can take a massive load. The cost on an individual computer, shoe or pillow is essentially nothing.
- stordoff 14y agoApple ship by air at least some of the time - http://www.businessinsider.com/air-freight-rates-from-china-skyrocket-as-apple-buys-up-space-for-ipad-shipments-2012-3 http://www.businessinsider.com/air-freight-rates-from-china-...
- annon 14y agoApple airships pretty much everything. If you settle for transit by boat, you're going to have at least 4 weeks between leaving the factory and being in someones hands. Apple pushes to hold stock less than 1 week.
- hkmurakami 14y agoShipping times are actually longer now than they were 5 years ago. Right before the financial crisis, shipping companies built up their fleets significantly and built "super ships" with huge capacity only to be met by diminished business just years later. As a result, they've deliberately slowed down their ships to cycle in more of their otherwise-would-be-idle ships.
- yummyfajitas 14y agoWages have not declined. http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/ECIWAG http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/ECIWAG
- ahi 14y agoThat graph is awful. I'm not even sure that your conclusion is a valid one. Whoever made that graph should be beaten to death with the collected works of Edward Tufte.
- wisty 14y agoWhat's bad about it? It has a fairly low "information density" (because it's a boring time series) but there's no other real sins I can think of. It's the authors of pretty (but useless) infographics who generally need to be beaten to death with the collected works of Edward Tufte.
- Evbn 14y agoThe data show <2% growth per year but the axes make it look rather dramatic.
- vacri 14y agoThat doesn't make it a bad graph. In fact, putting lots of white space at the top and bottom to make 2% look small would make it a bad (misleading) graph and obfuscate any detail in the line. It's a graph representative of the data. Could have done with a better colourscheme, perhpas.
- ahi 14y agoWhich would put it at about inflation, so no growth.
- thedaveoflife 14y agoreal wages... meaning adjusted for inflation.
- MetalMASK 14y agoalso the wages of skilled worker in China, India, Vietnam, .etc skyrockets during the last 2 years.
- gtirloni 14y agoThe same greed that sent jobs overseas is now bringing them back. The difference is now the US companies will run a huge PR campaign saying they doing this because care about America, blah, blah, blah.
- crag 14y agoIt's also about sustainability. It cost money/resources to ship product assembled in China. Lots of money.
- astrodust 14y agoEspecially when you're Apple and you ship everything by plane.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- jrockway 14y agoWouldn't a shill just indicate that they're not a shill? I don't think self selection works the way you think it works.
- Wingman4l7 14y agoThere's also this piece from Wired, from their March 2011 issue: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/02/ff_madeinamerica/ http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/02/ff_madeinamerica/ Made in America: Small Businesses Buck the Offshoring Trend