US factory workers are considered to be a better deal than they were about ten years ago. That’s the crux of a changing mentality towards hiring more American workers. Simply put, companies believe that there are valid reasons for hiring people at home and some of them include a reduction in the “wage gap”, lower energy costs in moving goods across oceans but also more control over the final product.
According to statistics, in a comparison between United States labor and key trading partners like South Korea, China, Germany and Canada, American workers have been steadily gaining in competitiveness over the last ten years. China used to be a huge discount to American firms a decade ago, they’ve lost half that productivity recently while Germany and Canada have lost almost 40% of this advantage. Detractors, who believe that this suggests anything but a renaissance of the American manufacuring industry as the total output of the industry has fallen by 0.54% while the American GDP has increased by 2% overall.
Although this statistic is not false altogether, experts have hardly suggested that the manufacturing industry will lead the charge when it comes to a recovery of the economy. What they do see is that there will, indeed, be an increase of factory activity in the United States over the next few years. So why will this happen? For the simple reason that American factory workers have not been such a good bargain for the last decade now, as statistics reveal. And even though we’ve had problems with overseas markets as well as production issues within the country, this is one trend that you can’t ignore.