Despite investments, reshoring of manufacturing jobs remains spotty

By Karen Hanna

A focus on reshoring manufacturing jobs has so far brought home only mixed results, according to a recent survey of global business executives that characterized manufacturing’s situation in the U.S. as “treading water.”

The last four years have seen significant investment dollars flow into manufacturing, at levels twice or three times the amount seen before the COVID-19 pandemic started, according to the “2026 Reshoring Index,” released by Kearney, a global management consulting firm.

Though overall U.S. imports of manufactured goods went up by $133 billion between 2024 and 2025, recent investments suggest potential for future domestic manufacturing gains. “So far that’s only translated into a modest increase in capacity, but one can reasonably expect those announced investments will come to fruition sometime in the near future,” the report explains.

In a survey for the report, CEOs told Kearney issues around political instability,tariffs, and labor availability remain a hurdle for companies.

“Our manufacturing teams are ready to run onto the field, we just need the goal posts to stop moving,” one CEO told Kearney.

Labor remains one key issue.

Fifty percent of those surveyed for the report listed the availability of “people on the line” as a challenge, and around three-fifths of respondents reported difficulty filling technical skills roles like machinists, technicians, maintenance specialists and others. Ninety-one percent of survey participants said they are raising wages to attract and retain workers.

While President Trump justified his imposition of tariffs as one way to offset the cost advantages of goods made in countries with low wages, the resulting expense increases have hampered growth. For many companies dependent on low-cost countries or regions (LCCRs) for supplies, the costs of the tariffs are dueling with the intended benefits.

“Especially companies with U.S. operations that primarily focus on final assembly but rely on imports, mostly from Asian LCCRs, for parts and components were faced with unexpected cost increases due to tariffs,” states an executive summary of the report.

Even so, the potential of reshoring for many categories of products traditionally made in Asia seems to be growing. Kearney lists these categories as textiles; fabrics and mill products; furniture and fixtures; miscellaneous manufactured commodities; electrical equipment, appliances and components.

While interest in investing in most categories of manufacturing has increased, at least slightly, a few categories remain particularly resistant to reshoring. They include computers and electronics, which the report refers to as “C&E”; machinery, other than electrical machinery; primary metal manufacturing; wood products; and apparel and accessories.

One category with an ever-widening ratio of LCCR products to those produced domestically is C&E.

To illustrate the intractability of that problem, Kearney cited the costs — including applicable tariffs — of assembling a laptop or smartphone in the U.S. vs. China or other developing countries, such as Vietnam, India and Mexico. No matter the mix of countries where laptop components might be sourced, U.S. labor costs proved higher than elsewhere.

The “Reshoring” report states, “...the current costs at the typical countries of origin for these products stay below the U.S. calculated costs, explaining why C&E has been such a hard category to reshore. That gap in cost between the U.S. and the current source countries is unlikely to shrink soon.”