Serious question: Modern manufacturing, especially for things like electronics, is highly automated and increasingly so. That implies you don't need a lot of labor to do it and what you do need is skilled labor anyway. Lower unskilled labor costs don't seem like a huge advantage there. So what's still keeping it in countries like China and India and not e.g. Minnesota, which would yield a PR advantage and lower transportation costs?
I can think of a few reasons in the nature of China devaluing their currency or other countries ignoring pollution, but these seem like illegitimate reasons. They're not a true advantage of China or India, they're perfidious regulatory arbitrage and a failure of US policy to punish cheating or impose the same environmental standards on all manufactured goods sold in the US regardless of country of origin.
So are those the only reasons (to which plausible yet unimplemented solutions exist), or is there something else we have to fix?
The real question is whether the required number of employees is off too, which if the numbers are from years ago and the theory that automation is increasing is true then it would be, and then as you say, how that plays out in terms of labor per unit.
You’re absolutely right, I was being unrealistically conservative. In reality that many workers would almost certainly unionize and average labor costs could easily be $250-$300 a day or more.
The main reason modern manufacturing is in (mostly south) China is the ecosystem! For electronics specifically, you have a tightly woven network of suppliers, factories, part distributors, logistics companies, and lots of local expertise tying it all together, as well as lots of established relationships and processes that keep it running smoothly. A factory, however highly automated, does not run in isolation. Of course you can build that kind of ecosystem elsewhere, but that's a 3-4 decade project and requires enormous investment at high political and financial risk (which is what China did in the 80s with the SEZs).
Regulation. It's not that easy to buy land, build a building, hire and fire people. If this is confusing, try buying some land and building a building.
Also the supply chains are all over there so the lead times and communication are vastly better.
I can think of a few reasons in the nature of China devaluing their currency or other countries ignoring pollution, but these seem like illegitimate reasons. They're not a true advantage of China or India, they're perfidious regulatory arbitrage and a failure of US policy to punish cheating or impose the same environmental standards on all manufactured goods sold in the US regardless of country of origin.
So are those the only reasons (to which plausible yet unimplemented solutions exist), or is there something else we have to fix?