[Will88]

Many offshoring decisions were based on a single preoccupation—cheap labor. The labor was so cheap, in fact, that it covered a multitude of sins in other areas. The approach to bringing jobs back has been much more thoughtful. Jobs are coming back not for a single, simple reason, but for many intertwined reasons—which means they won’t slip away again when one element of the business, or the economy, changes.

Final paragraph of the article. Many at FR need to read that several times to let it sink in. Some want to pretend that cheap labor was one of the last reasons for offshoring, if it was a reason at all.

But cheap labor was the reason, the first reason and overwhelmingly the most important reason for most offshoring. No one can compete when labor in a cheap labor nation is 10%, or even 5% or less of what it is in the US. And that goes for every job in the US that can be offshored or outsourced, not just for 'low skill' manufacturing jobs.

Who knows how big this trend back to the US will be, but it's the only thing that will produce enough jobs to bring about the economic growth and job growth needed to move people from unemployment and welfare back to the workforce, or to the workforce for the first time. And that is the only thing that will ever enable up to get our budget deficits and national debt under control. What Congress and Obama might do will amount to little or nothing.

[BfloGuy]

No one can compete when labor in a cheap labor nation is 10%, or even 5% or less of what it is in the US.

They can compete if the productivity of that cheap labor is "10%, or even 5%" of what it is here. It is the productivity that counts more than the hourly wage.

In some cases, American labor will not be able to compete -- in others, as shown in this article -- it can. Offshoring was a fad. It won't disappear, but there are still advantages to producing many goods in America.

At least until Obama can figure out how to erase them.