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American Manufacturing Is Going (to New) Places: And What That Means About Jobs

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Mark Tomlinson
CEO, Society of Manufacturing Engineers

There’s been a lot of discussion lately about American manufacturing: why it’s important to a strong economy, what policies could strengthen it, and if the signs of resurgence will result in jobs for the many who remain unemployed in this country. (“Is U.S. manufacturing making a comeback, or is it just hype?” Washington Post, May 1, 2013; “Made in America” Time, April 22, 2013.)
To understand that last point, we must accept that we can no longer equate the number of manufacturing jobs with a successful manufacturing industry.

If America is to compete with low-waged countries, we must innovate ways to make things more cost effectively than the labor-heavy products that have been outsourced for the last two decades.

Manufacturing has long been the primary source of innovation, and the industry is using this creativity to remain competitive in a global market. And this is impacting the kinds of workers manufacturers need today.

For example, by automating processes, factories can now run “lights-out” operations that require no workers on site. Should we bemoan the loss of the repetitive-assembly jobs that used to be needed to support this type of activity or celebrate that this company can mark their products “Made in America,” and keep the higher-skilled jobs required to keep its lights out here in this country?

Manufacturing jobs are changing. We can no longer expect manufacturing to employ our nation’s low-skilled workers. Manufacturing jobs are now a part of the “knowledge economy.”

A healthy manufacturing industry of the future is one that keeps the research and development, design and production — and the highly paid manufacturing jobs that come with it — in America. Although these jobs won’t be as plentiful as they were in the last century, advanced manufacturing jobs average $77,000 compared with the workers in all other industries who average only $60,200 a year.

This illustrates why it is increasingly more critical to educate and train a workforce that can design parts and equipment, process how parts are made, manage, program and repair high-tech machines.

This education begins in the elementary schools where children are introduced to STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and math). Participation in programs such as FIRST Robotics and SkillsUSA engage students and demonstrate real-word applications of science and math.

We also need to ensure our educational programs are creating workers ready for today’s jobs. SME is currently working within several communities to connect high schools, community colleges and local manufacturers in order to create a pipeline of future workers. With our knowledge of what manufacturers need, we work with more than 500 schools to offer industry-validated classes that prepare students for professions in today’s manufacturing environment. Online classes, for example, enable teachers to spend less time lecturing and more time applying this knowledge in the lab.

More than two thirds of manufacturers are having difficulty finding skilled employees. We cannot stand by hoping someone else will solve our skills gap crisis. Industry, government and educators need to work together to implement solutions that work.

Change is inevitable in manufacturing. Will we be ready to face the challenges ahead of us? Let’s stop talking and get on with making the future together.

SOURCE:  Huffington Post

Mark C. Tomlinson, CMfgE, EMCP, is executive director and CEO of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME), a 501(c)3 organization that inspires, prepares and supports the advancement of manufacturing. SME works with government, educators and industry to resolve the skills gap that threatens manufacturing and the U.S. economy.  Follow Mark Tomlinson on Twitter:  www.Twitter.com/SocMfgEng 

Legislation Seeks to Tweak Standards for Made in USA

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American Made products

Sally Schilling/Daily Journal Dylan Sievers, right, and Lisa Sievers, third from right, with the Bulldog Lighting company.

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Sally Schilling
Most Americans probably don’t think twice when they read a label that says, “Made in USA” They assume the product is made domestically. What they don’t realize is that the meaning of “Made in the USA” is up for debate.
In almost all states, an item can be labeled as “Made in the USA” and still be made with a portion of foreign labor or foreign material.In California, on the other hand, there is no leeway for products labeled “Made in the USA.” Manufacturers who want to label their goods as “Made in the USA” in California must use only American labor and American material. For 19-year-old Dylan Sievers, CEO of Bulldog Lighting based in San Carlos, this proved to be a problem. At age 17, Dylan started Bulldog Lighting — which makes LED lights for off-roading vehicles — in a business enterprise class at Junipero Serra High School in San Mateo. The young off-roading enthusiast discovered there was a lack of affordable lighting available for people wanting to race their trucks through dark terrain. He asked his mom if she could use her own background in manufacturing to help him figure out how to make the lights. “He asked if I could find a factory that could help make LED lights that were affordable,” said Dylan’s mother, Lisa Sievers, who previously worked for Cool Balls manufacturing antenna balls. “We found a factory in China.” Bulldog Lighting debuted its products last year, and Dylan decided to bring all production stateside. “He was sitting in class hearing about people losing their jobs,” said Sievers. “We decided we could make it here in the USA” The Sievers were hoping to label their product as “Made in the USA,” and were disappointed when they found out they could not make that claim. Despite their best efforts to produce the lights in the United States, there were some materials in the lights that Sievers said had to come from foreign countries. “There’s just some things in the United States we don’t make,” she said. “We don’t make LED here.” Bulldog’s lights are about 90 percent made in the United States, said Sievers.  “I don’t think it’s reasonable to say everything can be made in the USA,” she said.  The aluminum in the lights is from Texas, and the screws are made in Ohio, she said. “[The product] is substantially transformed using American workforce,” she said. “Dylan said, ‘if we do everything here, how come we can’t say ‘Made in the USA’?’” The Sievers are considering moving to Texas, where their products could be sold with a “Made in the USA” label. Proposed state legislation The Sievers contacted state Sen. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, who wrote legislation to address the issue.  “If you want to be competitive and keep jobs in California, we need to do everything we can,” said Hill. Hill has since introduced Senate Bill 661 to “update” California’s labeling standard to reflect the realities of today’s global economy. SB 661 would reduce the “Made in the USA” standard to allow for 90 percent of the product to be made in the United States. In this case, the manufacturer would have to prove that the remaining 10 percent of production was unavailable domestically. “This still gives us the integrity of the claim,” said Hill. According to Hill’s office, the original standard in California was established in 1961 to “prevent foreign firms from taking advantage of ‘buy American’ promotions.”  This standard is unrealistic in today’s global economy where not all materials are available locally, said Hill.  He gave the example of Star Milling Company in Perris, Calif., which produces feed that is 99 percent made in the United States. Just one vitamin in the feed is unavailable domestically, he said. He hopes bringing California standards closer more in line with federal standards will allow companies within the state to remain competitive.  “The final transformation has to be done domestically,” said Hill of his bill’s requirements. “We’re meeting every standard that can be made.” False advertising? Some consumer advocates are opposed to changing California’s labeling standard because they say it would be false advertising.  “This is a truth in labeling issue,” said Richard Holober, executive director of Consumer Federation of California. “We do not support changing the current standard. If something is 90 percent made in the U.S., it should say ‘90 percent made in the U.S.’” Aside from a few sectors such as the automobile industry, there is no legal requirement for companies to disclose the origins of its products. Labeling should not be such a big issue because it is a choice, said Holober. Changing California’s standard would hurt companies who are 100 percent American-made, he said.  “If there is a union company that pays better wages and is 100 percent [Made in USA.], they’ll say, ‘wait a second, why shouldn’t be able to gain a tiny edge here?’” he said. Some unions are also coming out against the bill “If you’re going to advertise your product as “Made in the U.S.,’ then it should be made in the U.S.,” said Shane Gusman, who represents the Teamsters Union and the Machinists Union. “Why would we want to loosen the standard so that ‘Company X’ can import 10 percent of its components from somewhere?” The whole idea behind the label is to get consumers who want to be patriotic to buy that product, said Gusman. Taking away California’s high standard would reduce the demand for domestic manufacturing jobs, he said. Lisa Sievers will be testifying in before the Senate Judiciary Committee on SB 661 on Tuesday.

American Made Clothing Companies Find Ways To Survive As Others Chase Cheap Labor Abroad

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Labels of garments made in Bangladesh, India, China, and Pakistan (AP Photo/David Goldman)

 

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Kim Bhasin
Six dollars. That’s how much more an American consumer would have to pay for the typical T-shirt made in the U.S. rather than in a potentially unsafe factory in a poor, faraway country.
So reckons Eric Henry, chief executive officer of a North Carolina-based apparel manufacturer called TS Designs, which markets its T-shirts as both environmentally sustainable and ethically produced — two virtues sprung from the fact that it cannot compete on price while remaining in the U.S.“We decided to stay here, and it has been a difficult path,” said Henry.

Henry has been in the apparel business for three decades, enough to see nearly all of his competitors disband or head overseas in search of workers who will do the job for lower wages. Henry has taken the opposite route, shrinking the geographic scope of his supply chain and making that a marketing feature.

His company makes its products “dirt to shirt” through a supply chain that spans only 600 miles and boasts complete transparency. Customers are invited to use a website to input a special code emblazoned on the back of every shirt. The site then serves up the name, photo and contact information for every person whose labors went into creating the product, from the farmer who grew the cotton to the workers who print and dye the shirts.

His “most sustainable” T-shirt, which uses certified organic cotton, a transparent supply chain, with a patented environmentally-friendly print and dye system, costs around $14 wholesale. The same type of shirt would cost about $8 to make overseas, he estimated. In short, the $6 gap.

The difference comes down to paychecks. Workers at TS Designs in North Carolina are paid an average of $15 an hour, Henry said. The average factory worker in Bangladesh makes $0.21 an hour, according to the Institute of Global Labor and Human Rights.

“Our T-shirts cost more because of where they’re made and how they’re made,” said Henry, admitting that he can’t compete on price alone.

In the wake of the worst garment industry accident in history — the collapse of a factory in Bangladesh, which took the lives of more than 600 people — attention is again focused on the full costs of churning out low-priced goods via a global supply chain. Consumers are absorbing another reminder that bargains on store shelves in Los Angeles and Philadelphia may come at the expense of people toiling in unsafe conditions in Dhaka and Guatemala City.

For Henry and like-minded entrepreneurs in the U.S. — those seeking to buck the trends of global trade by manufacturing at home — the hope is that this consumer awareness may expand their market niche.

Online apparel retailer American Giant, for instance, does not compete with the world’s largest apparel brands on price. A men’s T-shirt bearing its label runs $24.50 — roughly four times more than its most inexpensive counterpart on the shelves at Walmart, Target or some other enormous retailer.

Ask the company’s chief executive, Bayard Winthrop, about disparity in price and he will tell you about the workmanship and quality of raw materials that goes into his T-shirts. But he will also tell you about geography: His shirts are made in America, and not on the other side of the world, in a poor country in which workers may be mistreated.

“I need to give that consumer an option for a product from a company that fits their system of beliefs,” Winthrop said.

Winthrop’s emphasis on quality is both a virtue and a necessity. Even mighty Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, could satisfy the consumer craving for low prices if it made its wares exclusively in the United States, he said.

“Can Walmart make a $5 tee in the U.S.? Probably not,” Winthrop said. “But can they make a $9 tee that lasts longer and made in the U.S.? Yes they could.”

Using hypothetical figures, Winthrop explained that if a manufacturer makes a T-shirt for $6 in the U.S., $3 of that would be fabric and design, while the other $3 would be labor. If you take production overseas, the labor cost would be less than $1. The fabric and design cost doesn’t change much, he said, especially for a simple piece of apparel like a T-shirt.

So vast is the apparel and so large the companies involved that they have hop-scotched the globe in permanent pursuit of lower labor prices somewhere new. In the United States, some 97 percent of all apparel is now imported, according to the American Apparel and Footwear Association.

This pursuit of lower prices through globalization amounts to a “race to the bottom,” said Pietra Rivoli, a professor of finance and international business at Georgetown University, and author of the book The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy.

“This industry is so mobile that it gets fixed in one place and then pops up somewhere else,” Rivoli said.

But American apparel manufacturing may eventually see a resurgence, some experts said. The garment industry is undergoing the kind of technological change reshaping many industries: Machines are increasingly attending to tasks once performed by humans. That undercuts the overall cost advantages of going overseas in search of cheaper labor. As automation emerges as a greater force in the apparel trade, that could send investment back to the United States, where mastery of machinery remains a core strength.

“Technological progress has taken away the worst part of many jobs,” said Rivoli.

Right now, complicated tasks are still done by humans, such as the manual addition of buttons and zippers to clothing. But that is changing.

“It’s gradually mechanizing,” said Rivoli. “If you can get that to be 100 percent true and it’s machines that are producing our T-shirts, then companies aren’t going to be chasing around the world for those labor costs.”

SOURCE:  Huffington Post

Bill Would Create Made in California Label

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american made car

Backers of the legislation to create a “Made in California” label include electric-car maker Tesla Motors Inc., a group of San Francisco Bay Area green-tech firms and small-business advocates. But some business leaders see problems ahead for the concept. (Jane Tyska, Contra Costa Times / April 11, 2013)

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Marc Lifsher
The legislation, for manufactured products, would enhance the state’s reputation for making environmentally safe and energy efficient products, a senator says.
A “Made in USA” label has long been seen as an advantage in marketing a product. Now there are in-state manufacturers that want to see the adoption of an official label that declares Made in California. State Sen. Ellen M. Corbett (D-San Leandro) has introduced legislation to require Go-Biz, the governor’s business development office, to come up with a plan — including the new label — to promote California-manufactured products. The bill, now before the Senate Appropriations Committee, would enhance California’s reputation for making environmentally safe and energy efficient products, Corbett said. Backers of the legislation include high-end electric-car maker Tesla Motors Inc., a group of San Francisco Bay Area green-tech firms and small-business advocates. But some business leaders see problems ahead for the Made in California concept. Deciding whether something is made in California could be tough considering how complex manufacturing can be today, warned Jock O’Connell, a Sacramento-based international trade expert with Beacon Economics. Look, for instance, at international supply chains, especially for high-tech products such as aircraft that use parts made on multiple continents. “I really see a good intention here,” O’Connell said, “but it’s a piece of legislation that in practice is nearly impossible to implement.” Sales-tax sharing California cities increasing are using tax money to woo companies or to keep them, but some lawmakers are urging caution. Amazon got a share of new sales taxes receipts collected by the cities of Patterson and San Bernardino when the giant Internet retailer agreed to put its distribution centers and new jobs there. In addition, the Bay Area city of Martinez agreed to share tax money with an industrial firm that threatened to leave town. Last year, state Sen. Mark DeSaulnier (D-Concord) said he was contacted by the city manager of Martinez, who was concerned about such tax giveaways. The lawmaker recalls the manager pleaded, “We need you to save us from ourselves.” As a result, DeSaulnier — a former city councilman and county supervisor — has a bill requiring local governments to make an independent cost analysis before granting any tax subsidy of more than $1 million to a proposed developer. “In today’s global economy,” he said, “it is imperative that our cities have the best possible data as they negotiate with large corporations.” The bill, SB 673, won approval from the Senate Governance and Finance Committee last month. But it still faces formidable opposition from the League of California Cities, which blasted the bill for having “a clear anti-development bias.”

All American Clothing Co. Launches New Tee Shirt Products that are ‘Grown and Sewn’ in the USA.

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The ‘poster child’ for USA made clothing continues to grow as they create new products.
All American Clothing Co. today announced a new line of tee shirts. Three new styles have been designed and added to its inventory with high quality expectations. They are also sold at an affordable price that will allow anyone to wear a USA Made tee shirt. All American Clothing Co. allows the consumer to rate the product and help the manufacturer make adjustments to the design and pattern of their items. This allows the consumers who care about USA made products to make suggestions for the next production line. This process has helped the American made clothing company grow in recent years as they continue to listen and develop a strong relationship with their customer base. A great relationship with its customers has resulted in a high level of return buyers.

The new USA made tee shirts are available in the three styles of a ‘Freedom Eagle Seal’, ‘Logo Tee’, and ‘Premium Quality Denim.’ All feature a distressed design printed on the front of a heavyweight 6.1 oz, 100% cotton American made tee shirt. The All American style and durability of the tees make them perfect for work or play. The new tee styles will join a wide selection of American made jeans, short, shirts, footwear, and accessories.

One purchase from All American Clothing can help the American economy in many ways. For example, the clothing is made in the USA, the box it was shipped in was made in the USA, the website is hosted by a USA company, the shipping companies are all from the USA, and the people who make and deliver the clothing are U.S. citizens. Purchasing one made in USA shirt or a pair of jeans affects many jobs in many different industries.

About All American Clothing Co.

All American Clothing is a success story that continues to prove the American dream can still be achieved. The entire company supports a “USA Made passion” as they strive to foster loyalty among customers. All American Clothing Co. is conceivably the poster child for American made small business success stories. To find out more about the passion and effort it takes to build a business in today’s economy please visit http://www.allamericanclothing.com.

The ‘poster child’ for USA made clothing continues to grow as they create new products.
SOURCE:  PR Web

Logan Beam
All American Clothing Co. 
888-937-8009

The Walt Disney Company pulls out of Bangladesh: Will that make workers safer?

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By Peter Grier
Staff writer
The Walt Disney Company pulls out of five developing countries – including Bangladesh, site of a devastating building collapse of a garment factory – telling licensees of Disney-brand items of its decision to phase out production there. Critics say pulling out is not the best response.

The Walt Disney Co. is pulling out of Bangladesh and several other developing countries, in part because of fatal accidents in factories that produced branded merchandise for Western firms. Announcement of the move follows last week’s collapse of a Bangladesh garment factory building, a tragedy that may be the worst such accident in world history. The official death toll is now more that 500 and keeps climbing as rescue workers continue the slow process of working through building rubble.

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A Bangladeshi woman looks at a wall filled with portraits of missing persons near the site of a garment factory that collapsed last week in Savar near Dhaka, Bangladesh, Friday. Disney pulls out of Bangladesh and several other developing countries, in part because of fatal accidents in factories that produced branded merchandise for Western firms. | Ashraful Alam Tito/AP

 

Disney officials said their pull-out decision was actually made in March, after a fire in a Bangladesh factory last November that killed more than 100. The company has told licensees that it wants to phase out production of Disney-brand items made in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Belarus, Ecuador, and Venezuela.Disney said it relied on World Bank Governing Indicators, which measure rule of law, corruption, and other national characteristics, to help make its decision.

“After much thought and discussion we felt this was the most responsible way to manage the challenges associated with our supply chain,” said Bob Chapek, president of Disney Consumer Products, according to a CNN report.

Are Western firms such as Disney, the Gap, and Benetton in part responsible for the conditions that lead to these tragedies in low-wage nations? Disney’s move shows that some feel their reputations are at risk, at the least, if they are tied too closely to foreign workplace tragedies.

Customers may avoid brands they suspect of abetting worker abuse. And a number of international nongovernment organizations today stand ready to publicize poor conditions found in factories linked to major nation retail brands.

But these NGOs don’t necessarily want their pressure to result in pull-outs. They want corporations to use their economic muscle to improve conditions.

The Washington-based Workers Rights Consortium, for instance, says it works with big companies and their foreign licenses to try to remedy problems before issuing public reports.

“The WRC views ‘cutting and running’ from a factory as a serious abrogation of a licensee’s responsibilities,” says the group in a statement.

Worker groups often want foreign firms to stay to preserve jobs and economic development. Some experts say the blame for tragedies such as the Bangladesh building collapse should be directed at local and national authorities who have the responsibility to protect their workers.

“By misassigning the responsibility for the recent tragedies to global retailers, western media and consumer movements allow the real culprits to get away scott-free and further diminish the likelihood of governance reform in poor countries,” wrote Jagdish Bhagwati, senior fellow for international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Amrita Narlikar, director of the Centre for Rising Powers at the University of Cambridge, last month in the British magazine Prospect.

Other experts put the problem in a larger political frame. The real problem in Bangladesh has been the complex trade apparatus erected by the US, which consumes most of the cheap clothing produced in developing nations, wrote Mallika Shakya, an assistant professor of sociology at South Asian University in Delhi, in the Indian newspaper The Hindu.

Between 1974 and 2004, the US Multi-Fiber Arrangement virtually dictated, item by item, the amount of clothing that third-world countries could export to the US, according to Ms. Shakya. Potential rivals to America such as China got small quotas, while Bangladesh and other unprepared nations got large ones.

The result was that Bangladeshi authorities could not keep up with the explosive growth of their country’s garment industry.

“That is a reason why most factory buildings are found to be built haphazardly, without acquiring the necessary clearance from state agencies,” wrote Shakya.

Gallup Poll: Americans Want American Made Goods

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BY: Jeffrey M. Jones
Patriotism, Jobs Primary Motivations for ‘Buying American’.  Six in 10 say they would pay more to buy U.S.-made products
PRINCETON, NJ — Forty-five percent of Americans say they recently made a special effort to buy products made in the United States. When asked why, these shoppers mainly cited patriotic or altruistic goals related to the national economy, including creating and keeping jobs in the U.S., rather than product-specific considerations such as quality, safety, or cost.
More specifically, the most common reasons for “buying American” were to support the U.S. or to be patriotic, mentioned by 32% of adults who sought out U.S.-made products in recent months, and to keep or create jobs in the country, mentioned by 31%. Additionally 20% said that buying U.S.-made products is good for the U.S. economy in general.

Fewer Americans in the April 11-14 poll mentioned specific attributes of U.S. versus foreign products as reasons for buying American, including the perception that U.S. products are better quality (13%) or concerns about the safety or quality of products made overseas (3%).

Though a substantial percentage of Americans, 45%, say they have made a special effort to buy U.S.-made products in recent months, more, 54%, have not made an attempt to do so.

There are wide generational differences in U.S.-centric shopping habits, with older Americans (61%), aged 65 and older, much more likely than younger Americans (20%), aged 18 to 29, to actively search for products made in the U.S. Younger Americans may be more accustomed to getting their products from overseas, and with international free trade agreements increasingly common, they may not have been exposed to as much pressure to “buy American.”

In addition to differences by age, there are differences by race and place of residence, with whites and those living in rural areas showing a greater propensity to favor American-made products. There are at best modest differences by gender, income, and party identification.

Americans Willing to Pay More for U.S.-Made Products

Sixty-four percent of Americans say they would be willing to pay more to buy a U.S.-made product than a similar product made in other countries. This includes the vast majority, 88%, of those who make a special effort to buy U.S.-made products, but also nearly half of those, 44%, who do not.

Given that 45% of Americans say they are making a special effort to buy U.S.-made products, and 64% say they are willing to pay more for American-made products, there is a group of about 20% of Americans who are not actively “buying American” but who seem willing to do so, even if they end up spending more.

The question did not specify how much more consumers would have to pay for U.S.-made products than for foreign-made products, but Americans may be less willing to pay significantly more for products made in the U.S. Thus, the 64% willing to pay more for American-made products may be an upper boundary estimate.

Nearly half of young adults, 43%, say they are willing to pay more for U.S. products. However, that figure is much smaller than the 70% of Americans aged 30 and older who are willing to do the same.

Americans Believe U.S. Quality Improving, but Attitudes Unchanged Since 1990

Most Americans believe that U.S. products are better now than they were a few years ago — 71% say they are a lot or a little better, while 16% say they are a lot or a little worse. However, those views are no more prevalent than they were more than 20 years ago, the last time Gallup asked the question in 1990.

Meanwhile, 52% say the U.S. has gained ground on Asian countries in terms of the quality of goods the country produces. But again, little has changed in Americans’ views on the topic since 1990.
One thing that has changed since 1990 is the rise of Chinese-made goods sold in the U.S. The 1990 question did not specify China as an Asian competitor, and Gallup did not include China in the 2013 update to ensure the current measurement is comparable with the past.

Implications

“Buy American” behavior is far from universal in the U.S., but nearly half of Americans say they actively try to buy U.S. products, and even more say they are willing to pay more for U.S. products.

Patriotism and concern for the health of the U.S. economy are major reasons behind people’s shopping for American-made products, but those attributes may be in shorter supply among younger Americans who find less appeal in U.S.-made goods. In fact, Gallup has found younger people in the U.S. ranking among the least patriotic subgroups of Americans.

If younger consumers continue to be less interested in buying U.S.-made products as they get older and future generations show a similar weak commitment to buying American, the wide generational divide in U.S. product shopping behavior could be a concern for the future market of U.S. products.

At the same time, there does seem to be a sizeable latent market for U.S. products that could be tapped, exemplified by the roughly one in five Americans who are not actively shopping for American-made goods but who say they are willing to pay more for U.S. products.

Survey Methods

Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted April 11-14, 2013, with a random sample of 1,012 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.

For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points.

Interviews are conducted with respondents on landline telephones and cellular phones, with interviews conducted in Spanish for respondents who are primarily Spanish-speaking. Each sample of national adults includes a minimum quota of 50% cellphone respondents and 50% landline respondents, with additional minimum quotas by region. Landline telephone numbers are chosen at random among listed telephone numbers. Cellphone numbers are selected using random digit dial methods. Landline respondents are chosen at random within each household on the basis of which member had the most recent birthday.

Samples are weighted to correct for unequal selection probability, nonresponse, and double coverage of landline and cell users in the two sampling frames. They are also weighted to ma
tch the national demographics of gender, age, race, Hispanic ethnicity, education, region, population density, and phone status (cellphone only/landline only/both, cellphone mostly, and having an unlisted landline number). Demographic weighting targets are based on the March 2012 Current Population Survey figures for the aged 18 and older U.S. population. Phone status targets are based on the July-December 2011 National Health Interview Survey. Population density targets are based on the 2010 census. All reported margins of sampling error include the computed design effects for weighting.

In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

View methodology, full question results, and trend data.

For more details on Gallup’s polling methodology, visit www.gallup.com.

SOURCE:  Gallup

Made in America Label Stages Comeback At Stores

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Mitch Lipka May 3, 2013
(Reuters) – When Roger Simmermaker went shopping for clothes at a Florida mall in the mid-1990s, he wanted to buy American, but to his frustration, he couldn’t find anything made in the U.S.A.
The experience motivated Simmermaker, an electronics technician by trade, to write “How Americans Can Buy American” – a guide to finding products manufactured in the United States, which were a scarce commodity at the time. Nearly 20 years after writing the book, he has seen a big change, with the pendulum in full swing back toward a wider choice of American-made products. They are often available without the expected higher price tag. “It’s definitely easier,” says Simmermaker, 47, who lives in Orlando and works for a defense contractor. “Especially in the last year or so, things have really changed.” Those who believe in buying American-made goods from U.S.-owned companies say it creates jobs and boosts the economy through reinvested profits and taxes. Profit-driven U.S. companies have their own reasons for locating factories, but manufacturers of goods ranging from refrigerators and dishwashers to laptops and tablets are starting to bring some of their production home, affording more opportunities for consumers with the patriotic conviction that Americans ought to buy American. Better still, that “Made in the U.S.A.” label may no longer carry such a premium price tag. That’s because production and shipping costs in China and other foreign manufacturing centers are rising. Shifting some manufacturing back to the United States doesn’t necessarily mean manufacturers have to raise prices to compensate for higher labor costs. To be sure, many industries are still dominated by imports – toys and textiles, for example. Still, Simmermaker and others who believe in buying American are seeing a broad shift. “Reshoring” advocates were thrilled earlier this year when Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s largest retailer, announced it was throwing its weight behind the movement. In January, the chain – known for its extensive selection of imported goods – said it would spend an additional $50 billion over the next 10 years on American-made products, “helping to onshore U.S. production in high-potential areas like textiles, furniture and higher-end appliances.” Likewise, Apple Inc. said it planned to build some of its iMac line in the United States instead of China. Ford Motor Co., Coleman Co. (part of Jarden Corp.) and Master Lock Co. (part of Fortune Brands Home & Security Co.) all have said they’re returning some manufacturing to the United States. The list goes on. WHAT IT MEANS FOR CONSUMERS While few companies will move production for patriotic reasons alone, the public relations boost that goes with a decision to bring jobs back to the United States is gravy. “They run the numbers and say ‘We can deliver just as cheaply from a U.S. operation as we can from, say, China.’ It has some nice extra benefits,” says Dan Seiver, chief economist for Reilly Financial Advisors, a wealth management firm in San Diego, California. “Whatever credit goes with it is fine” With little pricing difference, the impact on U.S. consumers might not be that obvious. But Simmermaker and other advocates also contend that products made in the United States are often higher-quality and safer than those made elsewhere. There is a decided upside for the companies, too. Making products closer to their end-market allows them to be more nimble in terms of customizing and delivering products. That was the case with Spreadshirt, a Germany-based custom shirt maker that recently opened a plant in Nevada to supplement the output of its existing facility in Pennsylvania. In 2011, the company was running its Pennsylvania plant around the clock. To keep up with holiday demand, it was forced to send some work to a plant in Poland, said Mark Venezia, vice president of global sales and marketing for North America. But the company quickly realized that the distance hurt overall costs and speed – to the tune of about $2 more per unit. “We didn’t lose money, but, obviously, it hurt our bottom line,” Venezia said. Hunting for a new location led Spreadshirt to Henderson, Nevada, where facilities that met specifications were available at favorable terms, along with a pool of prospective workers. “We just got this incredible deal that provided us so many benefits,” Venezia said.
SOURCE:  Reuters

The End of Outsourcing?

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After years of building what they hoped would boost profits by enhancing overseas operations, many U.S. manufacturers have become disillusioned by the lack of return on investment they had anticipated. Instead of finding cost-saving benefits overseas through outsourcing, they are finding headaches, which have spurred a growing number of American companies to head home and build upon the sturdy and sure bedrock of American stability and predictability.
This trend has come to be known as “nearsourcing.” It has been defined in professional publications as “producing products closer to where they are ultimately sold” or “the practice of getting work done or services performed in neighboring countries rather than in your own country.”Jimmy Alyea, writing for Supply Chain Analysis, provides an overview of some of the advantages American companies accrue when they move operations back home:

“The advantages of reversing low-cost supply chain strategies and embracing nearsourcing are many, including: no time-zone differences or lag time that prevents real-time communication and collaboration, fewer language and cultural barriers, lower business traveling costs to plan and oversee projects and work, shorter time to market in the case of manufacturing and reduced inventory holdings because of shortened transit times. Nearsourcing also supports the increased focus by firms on the importance of customer accommodation and fulfillment in order to achieve a strategic competitive advantage. Ultimately, a well-run, shortened supply chain is in large part dependent upon a firm’s logistical expertise.”

Many American manufacturers that have moved operations abroad have experienced a rude awakening.
American manufacturers that have moved operations to countries such as China and India have found themselves in for some rude awakenings, according to Jack Stack of The New York Times.“These countries usually require importers to pay for their goods up front and wait 90 days for the product. It also takes about 90 days to receive payment once an importer sells its product to a retailer. By the time the retailer sells the product and remits payment to the importer, it may take nine months or longer for a business to receive payment for outsourced goods. On the other hand, domestic manufacturers usually produce goods first and allow the client 60 days to remit payment. Thus, the company using nearsourcing receives an interest-free loan and payment from customers right about the time it pays the manufacturer.”
Then there is the realization by American manufacturers that were lured to foreign countries in search of cheap labor that while labor rates are rising (wiping out any labor cost advantages), they face the scourge of corruption, gripping poverty, hostile labor unions, crony courts, runaway intellectual property theft, inefficient labor, massive infrastructure deficiencies, skewed investment laws, security concerns, environmental meltdowns and host governments that expect strict adherence to their unfair and onerous rules and regulations.I recently reviewed a copy of Drewry Shipping Consultants’ Insight publication, which predicts that nearsourcing will increase, greatly tied to the uncertain growth rate of Internet shopping, for which consumers will soon demand same-day delivery. This will make it nearly impossible for companies that don’t have a domestic operational source to meet these shipping demands.

In its report, Drewry notes that after speaking to many shippers, the anecdotal evidence points to a significant increase in nearsourcing. “The trend is escalating for reasons that are easy to understand. Retailers need to offer more ‘made to measure’ goods that can be delivered to market a lot faster than from Asia. For example, a car or computer with a limited range of options doesn’t sell as well as models that can be sourced from closer to home with a wider range of cheap extras.”

American manufacturers and retailers are getting the message about the benefits of nearsourcing. U.S. retailers, in particular, are finding that they need to decrease cycle times, making it easier to constantly refresh merchandise. This keeps customers coming back into the store more often because they’re afraid of missing out on a new product.

Retailers from Target to The Children’s Place have discovered the advantages of nearsourcing. And in January of this year, Wal-Mart announced that it is increasing the sourcing of U.S. products by $50 billion over the next 10 years, hoping to boost U.S. manufacturing and jobs.

Manufacturers are also being reminded that U.S. labor is very flexible with a wide range of technical skills. This is accentuated by America being by far the choice destination of highly skilled immigrants. We must remember that legal immigration has always been essential to keeping America strong and vibrant. Attracting the world’s best talent must remain an important component of our economic growth strategy.

America is finding its sea legs when it comes to restoring our economy by boosting domestic manufacturing. A survey of 750 senior business executives worldwide, conducted in late 2012 by Ernst & Young, showed the number of executives that plan to nearsource previously outsourced activities will more than double in the next three years, from 14 percent to 35 percent.

For the American economy to recover and create jobs for 26 million unemployed or under-employed Americans, we all need to pull together. And that means U.S. manufacturers must demonstrate a commitment of reducing outsourcing and adopting nearshoring approaches to their businesses. There still is no stronger seal of approval throughout the world than when a product can proudly carry the stamp: Made in America.

Made in the USA: More Consumers Buying American

Made in the USA: More Shoppers Buying American

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Made in the USA: More Shoppers Buying American

Chris Rank | Bloomberg | Getty Images

A curious thing is happening among American shoppers. More people are taking a moment to flip over an item or fish for a label and ask, is it “Made in the USA?” Walmart, the nation’s largest retailer, earlier this year announced it will boost sourcing of U.S. products by $50 billion during the next 10 years. General Electric is investing $1 billion through 2014 to revitalize its U.S. appliances business and create more than 1,500 U.S. jobs.

Mom-and-pops are also engineering entire business strategies devoted to locally made goods — everything from toys to housewares. And it’s not simply patriotism and desire for perceived safer products which are altering shopping habits.

The recession, and still flat recovery for many Americans, have created a painful realization. All those cheap goods made in China and elsewhere come at a price — lost U.S. manufacturing jobs. A growing pocket of consumers, in fact, are connecting the economic dots between their shopping carts — brimming with foreign-made stuff — and America’s future.

They’re calculating the trade-offs of paying a little more for locally-made goods.”The Great Recession certainly brought that home, and highlighted the fact that so many jobs have been lost,” said James Cerruti, senior partner for strategy and research at consulting firm Brandlogic. “People have become aware of that.”

‘Made in the USA’ is known for one thing, quality,” said Robert von Goeben, co-founder of California-based Green Toys. All of their products from teething toys to blocks are made domestically and shipped to 75 countries.

“We are reaching a tipping point, where Americans are relearning its competitive advantage,” von Goeben said. “It’s not about the cheapest product, but the best quality product.”

For many consumers, affordability has driven the bulk of purchasing decisions. Businesses in turn have ventured abroad for cheap labor and specific manufacturing skills to keep prices down.

So what’s driving big and small businesses to increase sourcing of U.S. products — beyond the obvious good PR?

In short, a shift in global manufacturing that’s in the early stages. A combination of factors including rising labor costs are eroding China’s cost advantage as an export platform for North America.

Mexico, meanwhile, is rebounding as a manufacturing base, and wages there will be significantly lower than in China, according to a Boston Consulting Group report. By 2015, BCG forecasts that for many goods destined for North American consumers — manufacturing in some parts of the U.S. will be just as economical as manufacturing in China.

For years, the main attraction of China outsourcing has been access to low-cost labor. But pile on related business costs such as transportation of goods, duties and industrial real-estate expenses, and the global manufacturing landscape is no longer China-dependent.

Domestic manufacturing, meanwhile, is on the mend. The pace of growth in the U.S. manufacturing sector picked up to its fastest rate in more than a year and a half in February, as new orders continued to accelerate.

And imported goods — at least in footwear and apparel — are retreating slightly. While more than 97 percent of apparel and 98 percent of shoes sold in the U.S. are made overseas, U.S. imports in those two categories in 2011 declined for the first time ever since such data has been tracked by the American Apparel & Footwear Association.

“The cost competitiveness of U.S. manufacturing is on the rise,” said Cerruti of Brandlogic.

Of course, plenty of goods are still made abroad. And many Americans are broke, jobless or underemployed four years after the 2008 economic crisis. An unemployment measure that factors in those who have quit looking for jobs, as well as those working part-time for economic reasons, is at 14.4 percent. For many, buying “Made in the USA” is a luxury they can’t afford.

Made in the USA: More Shoppers Buying American

Sarah Wagner was inspired by a road trip including tours of US companies to create USA Love List, a website devoted to American-made goods.

USA Love List[p][/p]

Despite many shoppers’ thin wallets, there’s a growing appetite for domestically-made goods.

Blogger Sarah Wagner has turned her passion for “Made in USA” products into a successful website. USA Love List is devoted to sourcing and showcasing where to buy domestically-made items, ranging from lip gloss to pet food. She regularly scans the aisles of big retailers such as Costco and Target for American-made goods.

Site traffic has mushroomed since USA Love List launched in November 2011. “There’s clearly a hunger for this sort of information,” said Wagner, based in Philadelphia. “Companies have no idea how much Americans want to support American companies. They want to get behind their neighbors and communities to make sure those jobs stay there. It’s struck a nerve with a lot of people,” she said.

American-Made Green Products

Among the growing piles of American-made goods, many are green with recycled materials. Turns out it’s easier to manufacture green products domestically because sourcing of recycled materials including recycled plastic is particularly plentiful and transparent in the U.S., said Jenna Sellers Miller, president of Architec Housewares, a 9-employee housewares business, based in Delray Beach, Fl.

Some of Architec’s EcoSmart line of products are sourced domestically. The products are available at Target, Macy’s and Bed Bath & Beyond. “We’re getting appointments with retailers who just want to see our ‘Made in the USA’ products,” Miller said.

Domestically sourced recycled materials and a broader commitment to the environment shape Green Toys business strategy as well. With their factory and warehouse 10 miles apart in northern California, they also cut transportation costs and related emissions.

The 12-employee company also creates a ripple effect of jobs including supporting local drivers, shipping and packaging companies and testing labs. “We could not have started this company anywhere else,” von Goeben said. “This is a uniquely American company.”

Later this year, Green Toys will ship its first batch of toys from northern California to China. Said von Goeben, “It’s the irony of all ironies.”

SOURCE:  CNBC

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