The effort to bring back manufacturing plants to the United States, more commonly known as “reshoring”, has recently increased rapidly with health and diplomatic factors playing a significant cause.
It is no surprise that there are great benefits to bringing manufacturing to the U.S. Reshoring Initiative cited proximity to skilled talent, faster time-to-market, and collaboration with on-shore R&D as the main reasons stated by manufacturers and foreign direct investments (FDI) for moving their plants to the U.S.
What accelerated the move included several world-changing events:
- The 2019 Tariffs on Chinese Imports
- COVID-19-related supply chain disruptions in the areas of semiconductor chips, electric batteries, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), pharmaceuticals, and rare earth
- Diplomatic conflicts in Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia endangering the ability to continue production in overseas plants
Since then, the construction of new manufacturing facilities in the US has soared 116% over the past year.
Leading the reshoring efforts is the semiconductor industry. On. Aug. 9th, 2022, the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 was signed into law to address the domestic semiconductor chips shortage that led to production stoppages across many industries. This bill incentivizes chipmakers around the world to build semiconductor fabrication facilities or “fabs” in different regions in the U.S. with an estimated $52.7 billion funding for American semiconductor R&D, manufacturing, and workforce development, as well as a 25% investment tax credit for capital expenses for manufacturing of chips and semiconductor-related equipment.
One significant challenge that manufacturers will be experiencing is the need to rebuild the 10 million jobs lost to “offshoring”. 2021 marked the highest hiring in manufacturing in 11 years with 261,880 jobs added. Reshoring Initiative is now predicting 2022 will be far greater with an estimate of 350,000 new jobs by the end of the year.
Though hiring will increase in the manufacturing industry, the roles have evolved away from the traditional assembly line. Harry Moser, president of the Reshoring Initiative, said, “There’s no question that companies when they bring jobs back, they know they’re going to be paying three to five times as much for labor. Therefore they have to automate.”
The biggest hurdle that manufacturers must overcome is finding and recruiting high-skilled labor to populate the newly re-shored plants. This is where a specialized staffing firm can help.
Staffing firms that are specialized in supporting manufacturing roles are typically well positioned to network and identify candidates of all technical levels. In instances of highly specialized industries such as chip production, a niched staffing firm can be instrumental in meeting hiring goals.
If your company is expected to increase hiring in the areas of R&D and manufacturing as part of reshoring efforts, contact SoloPoint Solutions to see how we can supplement your recruitment plan: