FINANCIAL TIMES: Rising Chinese labour costs are changing the economics of global manufacturing and could contribute to the creation of 3m jobs in the US by 2020, according to a study being released on Friday…
The Boston Consulting Group estimates that the trend could cut the US’s merchandise trade deficit with the rest of the world, excluding oil, from $360bn in 2010 to about $260bn by the end of the decade. The shift would also reduce its soaring deficit with China, which reached $273bn in 2010 and has triggered an intense political controversy over China’s exchange rate policies…
Others, however, are sceptical that re-shoring will continue to grow. “What’s going to stop the current trickle of extra employment from becoming a real trend is the behaviour by the Chinese government in persistently finding ways to help its domestic manufacturers,” said Scott Paul of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, a lobby group… (group)
EDITOR: There’a lot of Chinese in the countryside eager to go to work at cheap wages in the cities.
