Ask anyone—politicians, bankers, the average person in the street—what they would like for Christmas, and the chances are the answer will be: “A better economy in 2012.”
Good news!! Looks like Christmas is coming early this year—especially as far as North American manufacturing is concerned. The PMI index jumped two points in November, with eight of the 18 manufacturing industries (including wood products) all showing growth, reports the Institute for Supply Management.
But wait, there’s more. Harold L. Sirkin, of the Boston Consulting Group writes:
“A resurgence of U.S. manufacturing seems to be in the offing. Wages are climbing in China at between 15% and 20% a year. In China's industrial heartland—which includes the provinces of Shanghai, Jiangsu, and Zheijang—productivity-adjusted costs are therefore rapidly converging with the costs in America's low-cost southern states. When adjusted for the productivity advantage of U.S. workers—who, in many cases, produce three times the output of their Chinese counterparts—wage rates in Chinese cities, such as Shanghai and Tianjin, may be around 30% lower than in America's lowest-cost states. Since wage rates typically account for 20% to 30% of a product's costs, this will make manufacturing in China just 10% to 15% cheaper than manufacturing in the United States.”
“China's cost advantage will drop to single digits after factoring in inventory and shipping costs, with productivity-adjusted labor costs effectively converging by 2015 or so. This will make states such as Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas attractive low-cost manufacturing hubs for the U.S. market.”
And this of course is good news for manufacturing companies in Canada, too. Because what happens south of the border tends to have a knock-on effect up here as well.
To some extent, of course, recession is part and parcel of any economy. Recession is the natural selection of business, weeding out the companies that are less strong, and enabling the leading companies to grow stronger. China doesn’t celebrate Christmas, and their new year only rolls around at the end of January. By that time, here’s hoping that North American manufacturing will have reported another two months of growth and will be right back on track.
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