179 Morgan Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11237 | Phone: 1-800-882-9393

american bag

Welcome Home, Manufacturers!

We are so excited to see the wave of businesses bringing their manufacturing enterprises back home to American shores.

The reshoring movement, while nowhere near significant enough to reverse decades of offshoring, is nonetheless more than just symbolically important. And there is a discernible trend in the numbers.

Sixty-four U.S. businesses reshored in 2011. The number of reshoring businesses jumped to 300 in 2014.

Are we proud that at Rainbow Polybag we maintained our presence in Brooklyn as a plastic bag manufacturer, and never took a single job overseas? You bet! But we’re not here to judge! We’re here to celebrate, and the reshoring phenomenon is well worth celebrating.

“You see more manufacturing activity within the U.S.,” said Patrick den Bossche, an analyist with A.T. Kearney that recently studied reshoring.

Den Bossche said no one should expect for there to be a million new manufacturing jobs in the next 12 months. Rather, with the draining of employment that lasted the last 60 years, the return of manufacturing jobs will be similarly incremental, and sometimes painfully slow.

In the meantime, homegrown, true-blue businesses like ours, proudly manufacturing polybags and custom plastic bags right here in Brooklyn for more than 25 years now, will continue to partner with one another and with the new returning businesses to make the U.S. economy self-dependent, and strong, in a way that it simply hasn’t been in years.

Part of what has created a more favorable environment for manufacturing businesses here in our great country is that labor costs and red tape have both increased abroad.

Harry Moser, of the Reshoring Initiative, said that the U.S. was losing 150,000 jobs a year 10 years ago, and the numbers of jobs lost to and gained from overseas in 2014 was about even.

“It’s taken 60 years for offshoring to happen, and it’s going to take decades for it to reverse,” Moser said.

In the meantime, those of us like Rainbow Polybag who stayed home the whole time really want to say congratulations to everyone managing to bring American jobs home! Way to go! Let the partnerships at home continue to blossom!