If you’re wanting to work at home for yourself or another company, this trend is certainly an interesting one. According to this Bloomberg article, the costs of doing business in Alabama are 3% lower than doing business in China!
Evidently it’s not just sleeping bags… it affects a wide variety of products and services as the article goes on to say:
China Loss Is Alabama Gain as Sleeping-Bag Firm Adds U.S. Jobs
A related article in the International Herald Tribune notes that Chinese exporters are feeling the pinch of slowing demand themselves. “Exports dropped by half” on exec noted.
Thankfully the workers who are being laid off at these plants seem to be finding work in plants that serve the growing domestic Chinese market.
Interesting times.
What’s it mean for work at home business people?
Well… who knows?
Some possibilities:
1. If you’re marketing products as a work at home business in a town that sees a new factory come back and prosper, you have a more profitable pontential client base and – if you’re in MLM – a local recruiting base.
2. If the companies that want to bring work back follow the lead of the call center operations, there may be more home based independent contractors.
The “numbers” for the call center industry used to be something like $30 per hour to run a domestic in house call center, $10 to run the same call center in India, and $20 to run that call center in the US with home based workers.
Can some US production work be shopped out similarly?
Some sewing operations have done this.
Some US insurance companies have sold their expensive real estate and gone “virtual”.
Could support jobs and virtual assistant jobs boom? Perhaps.
Let’s see what develops.
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