Reference no: EM133055037

The U.S. may be on the verge of bringing back manufacturing jobs from China. Outsourcing manufacturing to China is not as cheap as it use to be. Many companies, especially in the auto and furniture industries, moved plants overseas once China opened its doors to free trade and foreign investment in the last few decades. Labor was cheaper for American companies-- less than $1 per hour by some estimates at the time. Today, labor costs in China have risen dramatically, and shipping and fuel costs have skyrocketed. As China's economy has expanded and as China has built new factories all across the country, the demand for workers has risen. As a result, wages are up as new companies compete to hire the best workers. Experts note the fears that U.S. manufacturing is in decline are overstated and that the U.S. is still a manufacturing giant. However, both China and the U.S. each account for about 20 percent global manufacturing value added. The U.S. share of about 20 percent of global manufacturing value added "has declined only slightly over the past three decades," according to the Boston Consulting Group. With these estimates in mind, do you expect more and more outsourced jobs to be "insourced" in the future? What types of jobs other than auto and furniture have been outsources to China that may be brought back to the U.S?