Jobs returning to the U.S.?

I happened to watch a Rock Center episode (with Brian Williams on ABC)where they were airing a program about a small town furniture company 'bringing back' jobs it had once offshored to China. In a nutshell this was the story -

Lincolnton, NC - Williams begins with "We are just starting to see the first glimmer of evidence that some of the jobs that were offshored to China are coming back. A factory owner who years back closed his furniture making business and sent it to China, has brought his factory back home. Lincolntown, NC, is home to Lincolnton Furniture once again.

It seems Bruce Cochran had sold the long time family furniture making business 25 yrs ago when he could no longer compete with the Chinese market. The company was offshored to China. Over the last two decades, after witnessing what was happening in America, stagnant wages, unemployement Bruce Cochran began to realize he was a big part of the problem, so he came out of retirement and reopened his factory in the very same warehouse it once was housed. He says it's about the people, and it has weighed heavy on his mind. The new factory has created 130 new jobs, some of the employees worked for the original company 25 years ago. In effect while Mitt Romney was busy outsourcing jobs to China, Bruce Cochran did just the opposite, he began "INsourcing" fine furniture manufacturing jobs into the US.

Hal Sircum is a senior partner at Boston Consulting and he sees Bruce as part of a new and dramatic shift. Sircum says gone are the days of China having a "cost advantage" over american made products, that China is not the bargain it used to be. He states the average chinese worker is about 1/4 as productive as the average US worker. That wages in China have gone up, shipping charges have more than doubled. The days of China so often having a cost advantage over U.S. producers is about to come to an end. "We're looking at the tipping point right now and by as early as 2015 many expect we'll be at the same level as the chinese cost wise. This encompasses varied products, televisions, computers, electronics in general, and industrial good like rubber and machinery. And that would mean millions of new american jobs in the next few years."

When asked how big an impact this will have on the US, Sirkin says its going to be huge, when you take the mfg jobs and the service jobs that will be created. We will add two to three million jobs to the workforce. And that is no small thing. Bruce Cochran feels personal redemption in his actions, a living parable about people and profits and priorities.

"To make no mistakes is not in the power of man; but from their errors and mistakes the wise and good learn wisdom for the future."