Reshoring has been a hot topic for years — maybe even decades. But now some hard numbers are showing that it's a real trend, and not just a few anecdotal reports of production returning to North America.
In a Nov. 2 report, consulting firm Deloitte said some 62 percent of manufacturers it surveyed have started reshoring or near-shoring production capacities, Bloomberg writes. The survey included 305 executives at transportation and manufacturing firms, mostly in the U.S.
American companies expect to add 350,000 jobs through reshoring in 2022, a 25 percent climb from 2021, Deloitte says in its "Future of Freight" report.
While companies have talked about the benefits of having production closer to home for some time, the COVID-19 pandemic, global shipping congestion and federal dollars for U.S. manufacturing of computer chips and electric vehicle parts pushed reshoring from the "maybe" column to "yes."
Mike McGaugh, CEO of Akron, Ohio-based plastics and rubber maker Myers Industries Inc., said in an Oct. 30 conference call with investors that customers are convinced that it is time to build more close to home.
"I think the supply chain issues spooked some customers that we saw over the last two years or three years," he said. "And if you can make it in the Quad Cities as an example vs. somewhere in Southern China, even if the costs are little bit higher on labor, the ability to have rapid feedback and rapid delivery, it means something to our customers.
"And so [for] a reliable supplier that's 300 miles away, we are seeing the quotes vs. a supply chain that's 8,000 miles away."
