Walmart has pledged to buy an additional $250 billion in US-made products. But finding quality, low-cost US made goods is proving a challenge. How Walmart is acting as a catalyst for ‘Made in the USA’ manufacturing.
Will the STEM skills gap close if more women join the STEM workforce?
A new U.S. News annual index, sponsored by Raytheon, measures key indicators of STEM activity in the U.S. Despite some signs of improvement, student aptitude for and interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics has been mostly flat for more than a decade, even as the need for STEM skills continues to grow, according to the U.S. News/Raytheon […]
PetSmart kicks off the Inspiration Waggin’ tour with a bus filled with pups on Friday, May 9, 2014, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Casey Rodgers/Invision for PetSmart/AP Images) PetSmart is the latest major pet food retailer to say it will stop selling dog and cat treats made in China because of ongoing fears that […]
More than 1,000 dog deaths may now be linked to toxic jerky treats, according to a recent update from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The agency said that since 2007, there have been almost 5,000 complaints of pet illnesses related to the treats. The majority of the symptoms reported include gastrointestinal or liver disease, […]
After years of hand-wringing about the expense of making things in America, a new report from the Boston Consulting Group says that’s all changing. The shift is due in part to stagnant wages — at least that’s potentially good for something — and to a greater extent, the abundance and declining cost of natural gas. In […]
A Vietnamese protester holds a banner in a rally against Beijing’s deployment of an oil rig in the contested waters of the South China Sea, outside the Chinese Embassy on Sunday, May 11, 2014 in Hanoi, Vietnam. The deployment of the rig has a triggered a tense standoff in the ocean and raised fears of […]
STRONG SELLER: Single’s “Janessa” jumpsuit When Gala Inc. founders Galina and Michael Sobolev began shifting their production for their contemporary line,Single, back to the United States about six years ago, there were several compelling reasons to bring manufacturing home. FAMILY BUSINESS: Galina & Michael Sobolev, pictured with their sons, Evan (far left) and Julian (far right). […]
Lucas Remer helps produce alternators at Generac’s plant in Whitewater, Wis., where 80 factory jobs were created when the company reshored the manufacturing of a component to the U.S.A. from China. The move is part of a growing trend. GARY PORTER | MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL PHOTO Companies looking for return: After years of sending […]
Frank Krejci, president and CEO of Strattec Security Corp. Master Lock LLC, Caterpillar Inc., General Electric Co. and Whirlpool Corp. have all re-shored products back to the U.S., but more manufacturers are starting to lay the groundwork to come back home, according to a presentation by Deloitte Development LLC. The reason — U.S. manufacturing labor costs have remained flat […]
A bill introduced by state Senate President Stephen Sweeney would require Port Authority projects to use domestic steel. The agency was criticized last fall for allowing a combination of Chinese and American steel to be used on the Bayonne Bridge roadway project. Since then the contractor has switched from Chinese to Italian steel. (John Munson/The […]
U.S. manufacturing becoming low cost over the past decade compared with factories in China, Brazil and most of the world’s other major economies. So says a new private study, which found that rising wages and higher energy costs have diminished China’s long-standing edge over the United States. So has a boom in U.S. shale gas […]
We need to save the internet.Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon want to control what we can and cannot do online — and they’re about to get their wish. Their lobbyists and lawyers have taken over the FCC — the agency meant to keep them in check. Now, the former lobbyist running the FCC is about to announce new rules […]
The American economy is less entrepreneurial now than at any point in the last three decades. That’s the conclusion of a new study out from the Brookings Institution, which looks at the rates of new business creation and destruction since 1978. Not only that, but during the most recent three years of the study — 2009, […]
The good news from the April jobs report is that the recovery is the same as it’s always been. The bad news is that, well, the recovery is the same as it’s always been — and some workers are giving up as they realize that. As you may have noticed, this winter was pretty cold. So cold, […]
New government data released Friday morning showed the nation added 288,000 jobs in April, a reassuring sign that the U.S. economy has picked up momentum since stalling out over the winter. The hiring spree surpassed most analysts’ expectations and is the strongest showing in more than two years. Businesses added workers across a broad array of […]
New data from the World Bank suggests China could surpass the U.S. as the world’s biggest economy as early as this year, a day that was always meant to arrive after China began its quest for wealth in the 1980s, but it will just veil the reality of its economic weaknesses China’s economy is catching […]
“The game is rigged,” writes Senator Elizabeth Warren in her new book A Fighting Chance . It’s rigged because the rich and their lobbyists have rigged the rules of the game to their favor. The rules are reflected in a tax code and bankruptcy laws that have seen the greatest transfer of wealth from the […]
Before a throng of cheering Hickey Freeman Co.employees, company officials and Sen. Charles Schumer Monday announced a $1 million manufacturing deal with Polo Ralph Lauren and declared that there are more such deals to come. “We’re no longer interested in survival,” said Stephen Granovsky, CEO of Toronto-based Grano Retail Holdings, which bought the famed Rochester clothing company last […]
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – Photo Stencil, LLC, a leading full-service provider of high-performance stencils and tooling, announces the addition of a manufacturing plant in Golden, CO. The new 35,200 sq. ft. facility has three cleanrooms: a 10,000 sq. ft. Class 10,000 cleanroom, a 4500 sq. ft. Class 1,000 cleanroom, and a small Class 100 cleanroom. The […]
BOSTON – Massachusetts-based New Balance could get a boost worth tens of millions of dollars with a new Pentagon policy providing military recruits with U.S.-made sneakers. New Balance is one of the few shoe manufacturers that meet all federal requirements, said Matt LeBretton, spokesman for the company that manufactures shoes in Lawrence, Boston and Maine. Acting […]
In just a few hours Scott Paul, President of Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) will join Senator Sherrod Brown, Rep. Marcy Kaptur, and hundreds of workers and citizens in Lorain, Ohio to speak with one voice: Save Our Steel Jobs. Because they’re at risk. And Washington needs to know why. These workers are facing a flood of illegally produced foreign […]
A worker manufactures parts for industrial coffee grinding equipment at the Modern Process Equipment Inc. (MPE) manufacturing facility in Chicago. Photographer: Tim Boyle/Bloomberg Business activity in the Chicago area expanded in April at the fastest pace in six months, a sign manufacturing will keep supporting the world’s largest economy. The Institute for Supply Management-Chicago […]
NEW YORK CITY — Stephanie Wilson was reaching for a receipt inside a paper shopping bag from Saks Fifth Avenue when she found a letter pleading, “HELP HELP HELP.” The message, written in blue ink on white lined paper, appeared to be a desperate cry from a man who said he made the bag while being unfairly […]
Manufacturing in the U.S. has become more competitive over the past decade compared with rivals such as China and Russia. Shown here at workers in an American Apparel garment dye factory in Southgate in 2012. (GARY FRIEDMAN / Los Angeles Times / April 3, 2012) Another win for The Made in America Movement! A new […]
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will cover 40% of global trade It is poised to be the world’s biggest ever free trade deal and possibly its most ambitious. A dozen countries are negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which if successful, will account for two-fifths of world trade. Those countries are the US, Japan, Brunei, Malaysia, […]
Yue Yuen Industrial Holdings Ltd., the world’s largest branded shoemaker, fell the most in nine months in Hong Kong trading after the company said it plans to increase factory workers’ compensation in a bid to end a strike. Yue Yuen fell 5 percent, the most since July 2013, to close at HK$24.80, extending the stock’s decline this […]
POMONA, CA–(Marketwired – April 04, 2014) – Coleman® Spas is a company that understands the importance of keeping jobs in the United States. Committed to keeping over 200 workers employed, this leading spa manufacturer believes in the American Dream “the opportunity for prosperity, success, and upward social mobility achieved through hard work.” This message ignites drive and determination […]
WASHINGTON – More than 80 years ago, during the Great Depression, thousands of unemployed Americans traveled from far and wide to the border of Arizona and Nevada, hoping to land a precious job building and operating one of the nation’s great engineering wonders, the Hoover Dam. Today, however — even with millions of Americans unable […]
To build the new Tappan Zee Bridge, New York is bucking a trend and buying American, with steel made in Indiana. Three of ArcelorMittal USA’s plate mills are furnishing steel for the $3.9 billion bridge project, The Times in Munster, Ind., reported. ArcelorMittal expects to provide about 160,000 tons of plate for the twin-span crossing, […]
