In 1970, manufacturing’s share of U.S. gross domestic product was 22.7% but it was just11.9% in 2012. Yikes! Currently, 12 million Americans are employed in manufacturing – down from 17 million just 20 years ago. This long-term decline has continued over the last decade as well. The U.S. accounted for 11% of global exports of manufactured goods in 2011, down from 19% in 2000. (These statistics are from recent reports in the Wall Street Journal.)
I don’t know about you, but these statistics are disheartening for us at Greenco.
Yet, in the past couple of years, we have been encouraged by a number of stories of American industry “re-shoring” operations back in the United States. In June of 2013, for example, a Wall Street Journal feature entitled “Revolution in the Making” referred to the prospect of “an American industrial renaissance,” and claimed that 48% of large manufacturers planned to return production to the U.S. from offshore. In August, the Wall Street Journal reported that the re-shoring of production from China to the U.S. appeared to be underway and that this could create 2.5 million to 5 million American factory and service jobs associated with manufacturing by 2020.
OK, that’s more like it!
We have been stateside since our inception. We never outsourced overseas. Why? Because we think on a human scale at Greenco – we want to employ Americans and encourage their bond with the company. We haven’t laid anyone off since 2002, despite harrowing economic conditions sometimes. For us it’s all about loyalty and friendship and affiliation – something very hard to achieve with impersonal vendor relationships overseas. So we keep business simple and true to our beliefs: When it’s made in the USA, we’ll make it in the USA!