We make lawn care equipment, so its considerably cheaper to buy from foreign manufactures as opposed to American, so we buy american steel to make the body of an item, or componets, but the wheels, parts boxes and bags come from China and Vietnam where labor is cheaper, we only employ 65 employees and that from the CEO to the janitor, the shipping department where i work has 7 people, but we average in sales $3 million a month on average.
Its not that american companies no longer know how to make them, american workers are more expensive to pay, especially since the pandemic, i know several places where its near impossible to find people who want to work now, where my brother works, he is the production manager of a small manufacturing company and the average CNC machinest command $40/hour, which isnt sustainable for a company that made $1.3 million, they cant hold on to people, many leave looking for more to do less, where i work, i do the work of 3 people, but im 51 and come from a different generation, people we hire now who are in the early 20s complain more and want to do less.
As for the tariffs they affected several places negatively, while China is experiencing the worst economic decline in decades while the United States is the fastest growing economy in the world, manufacturing in the United States is a dying industry, its been declining for decades, people my brother manages now have less experience and now how than the ones we worked with in the early 2000s, all of whom have moved on to other fields that make more money and more stable, one makes a 6 figure salary doing 3D printing, and he was a highly skilled CNC machinist, now he will never do that kind of work again and he was talented, but the pay isnt good.
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