From: lessgovt@gmail.com   
      
   America Is Back in the Factory Business   
   By John Keilman, April 8, 2023, WSJ   
      
   Production at U.S. factories rose last year, but few things were produced at a   
   more furious pace than factories themselves.   
      
   Construction spending related to manufacturing reached $108 billion in 2022,   
   Census Bureau data show, the highest annual total on record—more than was   
   spent to build schools, healthcare centers or office buildings.    
      
   New factories are rising in urban cores and rural fields, desert flats and   
   surf towns. Much of the growth is coming in the high-tech fields of   
   electric-vehicle batteries and semiconductors, national priorities backed by   
   billions of dollars in government    
   incentives. Other companies that once relied exclusively on lower-cost   
   countries to manufacture eyeglasses and bicycles and bodybuilding supplements   
   have found reasons to come home.   
      
   The pursuit of speed and flexibility prompted sock manufacturer FutureStitch   
   Inc., which has factories in China and Turkey, to open a new one in Oceanside,   
   Calif., last summer—the company’s first in the U.S.   
      
   CEO Taylor Shupe said retailers don’t want to carry excess inventory in   
   their stores, and the U.S. factory allows the company to quickly replenish   
   stock. Time is also of the essence to sell socks commemorating events like the   
   NBA Finals or the Kentucky    
   Derby, he said.   
      
   He said the company is keeping its overseas factories but is adding a second   
   in the U.S.—and maybe eventually a third—as it develops new products.   
      
   “There is more and more equity around ‘Made in the USA,’ ” said Mr.   
   Shupe. “To me, this is here to stay.”    
      
   Manufacturing has always been an integral part of American life. Paul Revere   
   opened a foundry that produced bells and cannons following his famous midnight   
   ride. Henry Ford’s assembly line made cars affordable to the masses. And   
   U.S. industrial might    
   helped win World War II, when nearly half of private-sector employees worked   
   in factories.   
      
   That portion plunged after the war, thanks to automation and U.S. companies   
   seeking lower costs overseas. Production capacity, which had grown at about 4%   
   a year for decades, flattened after China’s 2001 entry into the World Trade   
   Organization.   
      
   But last year U.S. production capacity showed its strongest growth since 2015   
   after pandemic-driven shortages and delays caused manufacturers to rethink   
   their far-flung supply chains, said UBS industrials analyst Chris Snyder.    
      
   “Covid kind of pulled the covers off and showed everybody how much risk they   
   were exposed to,” Mr. Snyder said.    
      
   Today U.S. manufacturing employment is holding steady at about 10% of the   
   private sector, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, with nearly   
   800,000 jobs added in the sector over the past two years. The total number, 13   
   million, was virtually    
   unchanged in the latest BLS jobs report.   
      
   The industry is actually hurting for workers—about 800,000 more are needed,   
   according to the National Association of Manufacturers—leading to concerns   
   that labor shortages and other bottlenecks could short-circuit the boom.    
      
   “I can bring back all the orders I want; there will be no one to make   
   them,” said Harry Moser, president of the Reshoring Initiative, which   
   advocates for bringing manufacturing jobs back to the U.S.    
      
   Huge govt incentives are stoking the frenzy. The Biden admin, seeing electric   
   vehicles and semiconductors as matters of national security, has devoted   
   billions of dollars to expanding those industries in the U.S. States are   
   kicking in billions more.   
      
   One result of that push can be seen in Lansing, Mich., the town where   
   Oldsmobile got its start in the late 19th century. In a field adjacent to a   
   General Motors Co. SUV factory, a vast skeleton of steel beams marks the   
   coming of the automotive industry’   
   s next phase.   
      
   The plant under construction belongs to Ultium Cells, a joint venture between   
   GM and LG Energy Solution Ltd., and it aims to start producing EV batteries in   
   late 2024. The factory shares a $2.5 billion federal loan with sister plants   
   in Ohio and    
   Tennessee. It has also received $666 million in state grants and a bargain   
   rate on electricity from the city’s utility.    
      
   Ultium said the factory will create more than 1,700 jobs. That’s not a huge   
   number by local standards—the state government, Michigan State University   
   and local hospitals each employ far more people—but Bob Trezise of the   
   Lansing Economic Area    
   Partnership said the suppliers that cluster around factories create a   
   multiplier effect, making them worthy of public support.   
      
   Hundreds of workers have swarmed over the site since construction began last   
   year. That inspired Debi Cheadle, who lives nearby, to buy a food truck to   
   serve burgers and burritos.    
      
   “I saw all the people coming and going and thought, ‘Let’s do something   
   that’s profitable and good for us, too,’” she said in mid-March as   
   lunchtime approached.   
      
   Lansing Mayor Andy Schor said the city is also wooing companies that make   
   semiconductors. Richard Branch, chief economist of the Dodge Construction   
   Network, which tracks building projects, said that industry, along with EV   
   battery companies, accounted    
   for nearly half of all U.S. manufacturing construction starts in 2022, as   
   measured in square footage.   
      
   Other new manufacturing lines are popping up in the Lansing area, taking   
   advantage of a well-trained local workforce. The Shyft Group Inc., which makes   
   specialty vehicles, is expanding its factory southwest of the city to build a   
   new line of electric    
   trucks and vans. Neogen Corp., which makes food- and animal-safety products,   
   is building a three-story manufacturing facility near the city’s downtown.   
      
   About 20 miles north of Lansing, in the small town of St. Johns, an   
   Ireland-based maker of dairy products has built a plant that each day turns 8   
   million pounds of milk into sacks of whey protein and blocks of cheese as big   
   as dishwashers.    
      
   The factory is a joint venture between the company, Glanbia Nutritionals, and   
   two cooperatives representing local dairy farmers. The facility opened in late   
   2020, and since hitting full capacity, processes a quarter of the milk   
   produced by Michigan’s    
   cows.    
      
      
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