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U.S. Manufacturing costs are almost as low as China’s

fortune.com

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Re: U.S. Manufacturing costs are almost as low as China’s

#111

Post by marcosdumay »

brianwawok wrote: post #92
BenoitEssiambre wrote: post #55

The next manufacturing frontier to cross is sub-Saharan Africa. We are starting to see signs of it happening. For example, I just bought myself some great shoes ( https://www.oliberte.com/men/ ). Since it is the last large severely underdeveloped place with cheap, young capable labor and lots of natural resources, this might actually be manufacturing's final frontier.

Is there enough political stability though? Outsider investors want some degree of stability to invest in large manufacturing plants. I am not a scholar in sub-saharan Africa, but I am not yet of the opinion that it is a stable place to set up shop.

Some places have, other don't. Africa is not homogeneous at all.

Re: U.S. Manufacturing costs are almost as low as China’s

#112

Post by [deleted] »

tptacek wrote: post #104
bobjordan wrote: post #54

Shenzhen China factory owner here. The costs are definitely rising in China for English speaking technical labor such as the engineers we need. We compete with companies like Apple and all the other foreign companies rushing to China these days to keep them employed. But we are still talking much lower salaries overall, for example, $30,000 USD/year for a degreed Sr. Electrical design engineer with 20 years experienc…

How did you end up owning a factory in Shenzhen?

[deleted]

Re: U.S. Manufacturing costs are almost as low as China’s

#113

Post by CamperBob2 »

tptacek wrote: post #104
bobjordan wrote: post #54

Shenzhen China factory owner here. The costs are definitely rising in China for English speaking technical labor such as the engineers we need. We compete with companies like Apple and all the other foreign companies rushing to China these days to keep them employed. But we are still talking much lower salaries overall, for example, $30,000 USD/year for a degreed Sr. Electrical design engineer with 20 years experienc…

How did you end up owning a factory in Shenzhen?

I wondered the same thing. His linkedin page (in his profile) is pretty interesting. I'd like to hear his thoughts on some of the IP-theft topics being brought up elsewhere in the thread...

Re: U.S. Manufacturing costs are almost as low as China’s

#114

Post by bootload »

tptacek wrote: post #104
bobjordan wrote: post #54

Shenzhen China factory owner here. The costs are definitely rising in China for English speaking technical labor such as the engineers we need. We compete with companies like Apple and all the other foreign companies rushing to China these days to keep them employed. But we are still talking much lower salaries overall, for example, $30,000 USD/year for a degreed Sr. Electrical design engineer with 20 years experienc…

How did you end up owning a factory in Shenzhen?

some details:

- https://www.linkedin.com/in/bjordan1

- http://www.bomquote.com

Re: U.S. Manufacturing costs are almost as low as China’s

#115

Post by CamperBob2 »

adventured wrote: post #34
feelslikefelt wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with him. In this case, American entrepreneurs are abusing Chinese people. It's a human rights issue. It's an issue that China has been criticized for a very long time over. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/12/world/asia/man-details-ris... or even http://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-tech-factories-turn-to-st... This isn't a "well suck it up because at least you're getting paid /something/" issue. Chinese workers…

American entrepreneurs are the best thing that has happened to China in centuries. If it weren't for American capital, and the American consumer, China would have developed drastically slower (if at all). China's GDP per capita in 1994 was ~$480. That's ~45 years after the Mao revolution. There was no alternative than to pay them cheap wages to start. If you paid them 'first world' wages, nobody would have set up man…

I tend to agree with you, but note that the opposing arguments aren't entirely invalid. Think of how many Africans were better off as slaves in the antebellum South than living as free men and women back home. Did that justify slavery?

Re: U.S. Manufacturing costs are almost as low as China’s

#116

Post by rtpg »

megablast wrote: post #85
unquietcode wrote: post #51

There are health and environmental costs to fracking which are not being adequately addressed, and which are unsurprisingly ignored by this article. China was able to get a leg up through dirty coal and oil operations, but there are consequences to this. Some of their cities are today near uninhabitable, some are just unbearably smoggy. We definitely do not want to pat ourselves on the back for an economic boom that…

> China was able to get a leg up through dirty coal and oil operations, but there are consequences to this. No different to anywhere else in the world, just that it happened more recently.

It doesn't make it any less dangerous for public health.

Postulating that this was a necessary step to industrialization might require some strong evidence.

Re: U.S. Manufacturing costs are almost as low as China’s

#117

Post by maneesh »

g8gggu89 wrote: post #90
bobjordan wrote: post #54

Shenzhen China factory owner here. The costs are definitely rising in China for English speaking technical labor such as the engineers we need. We compete with companies like Apple and all the other foreign companies rushing to China these days to keep them employed. But we are still talking much lower salaries overall, for example, $30,000 USD/year for a degreed Sr. Electrical design engineer with 20 years experienc…

I want a tour of your dorms and factories. Can you post pics of a bunch of the buffet meals, please?

Here's a tour of a few factories in Shenzhen that I made when I began doing my factory search for my company, http://pavlok.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0_blmix2IU

Re: U.S. Manufacturing costs are almost as low as China’s

#118

Post by hifromsz »

maneesh wrote: post #117
g8gggu89 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want a tour of your dorms and factories. Can you post pics of a bunch of the buffet meals, please?

Here's a tour of a few factories in Shenzhen that I made when I began doing my factory search for my company, http://pavlok.com http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0_blmix2IU

Note that these are fairly high end (large, equipment heavy) factories and not necessarily representative of the many smaller factories in the area.

Edit: Guess I got banned, stay ignorant HN.

Re: U.S. Manufacturing costs are almost as low as China’s

#119

Post by hunvreus »

hebdo wrote: post #32
yeukhon wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking from a Chinese perspective, $3/hr in China today is still very low. That's like 3000 RMB for a 9-5 blue collar (which doesn't really happen as many workers work between 12-16 hours a day). But there are just so many expenses you cannot avoid while living in China as a Chinese... $3000 - $5000 is barely enough.

Wait, what. I've lived in Beijing in 2013. You can live off 3000RMB/month = 500USD/month. That's far from being rich, but also not barely survivable. Everything was cheap for me, and I'm from Poland.

I'm sure you can live in many places with even less than that, but claiming that you were not merely surviving with 3,000 RMB/month is delusional.

Costs in the large Chinese cities (which includes Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen) has been steadily increasing over the past couple decades. It can still be seen as cheaper to live depending on what you compare it to (e.g. SF) but to give a point of reference, Shenzhen is on par with Berlin in terms of cost of living (http://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living/comparison/shenzhen...). Shanghai is actually more expensive than Berlin too, Beijing is slightly cheaper.

I couldn't have comfortably lived in Shanghai back in 2005 with 3,000 RMB, and I'm extremely frugal (I don't drink, don't smoke, don't go out and my main hobbies include working out and reading).

Re: U.S. Manufacturing costs are almost as low as China’s

#120

Post by CamperBob2 »

clumsysmurf wrote: post #105
unquietcode wrote: post #51

There are health and environmental costs to fracking which are not being adequately addressed, and which are unsurprisingly ignored by this article. China was able to get a leg up through dirty coal and oil operations, but there are consequences to this. Some of their cities are today near uninhabitable, some are just unbearably smoggy. We definitely do not want to pat ourselves on the back for an economic boom that…

> Some of their cities are today near uninhabitable, some are just unbearably smoggy. I remember hearing about an 8-year old girl suffering from lung cancer. This is very sad http://www.theguardian.com/environment/chinas-choice/2013/no... Recently read a story in Rolling Stone on pollution in Vernal Utah from fracking. http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/fracking-whats-... Many high risk wells in the US are…

Rolling Stone has less than zero credibility at this point.
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