Why American Made Matters
Jun 26th 2018
How often do you open up a product and upon inspection you notice that it’s made in China? Made in Japan? Made in Mexico? You get the idea. While the bottom line for most businesses is making a profit, keeping things in the United States is more advantageous for us all.
Manufacturing was once a booming industry in America and for the people who worked in them. It provided a solid foundation in a global economy to produce goods that could be both exported to other countries and used right here in the US. It also solidified our economy and provided jobs to both men and women working in the facilities.
At HyVac, our vacuum fittings including port covers, weld fittings, hose fittings, npt adapters, and elbow fittings are all American made, which is one of the many factors that sets us apart from the other manufacturers. Follow along as we get in to why American made products mutually benefit everyone and create a stronger economy.
What Happened to American Made?
While manufacturing was once a flourishing industry in the US, factories began closing one by one only to be replaced by laborers in other countries. Not only did factory work begin dwindling, but with the development of technology, customer services jobs did too. Now, anything that can be outsourced to cheaper labor around the world, is.
What is the issue with outsourcing?
Outsourcing has been made and maintained as a normal practice in American companies. The companies move manufacturing and pay very-low wages to people abroad to save on overhead costs. While this doesn’t seem like a problem initially, it creates a cycle of missed innovation for companies. To stay competitive, companies must be innovative and how do they accomplish this if their workforce is in another country? The solution usually lies with them moving higher-skilled employees to where the manufacturing is taking place. When those jobs are moved, so are American innovation and leadership, and our economic competitiveness.
It’s also shown that was a company is outsourced, they rarely return to the US. So, needless to say, we’re losing valuable business and innovative minds in exchange for cheaper labor while more money is being made and only distributed among the top.
Aside from losing our competitiveness and innovative edge, there are many reasons why keeping things American made is crucially important.
- Jobs - Keeping things in the US creates more jobs for our lovely citizens. Supporting local economies is helping to buy homes or pay college tuition — it’s tangible change that you can participate in.
- Social justice - When you buy American made and keep businesses here, it’s a direct act of social justice. You’re not only supporting fair-wages for people here, but you’re supporting a system that abides in codes and laws to promote healthy and safe working conditions. Supporting American made businesses you can rest assured that children aren’t making your clothes or forced into working extremely long hours.
- Earth-friendly - Have you ever thought of the natural resources it takes to produce clothing? Not only do you use water to grow the materials, such as cotton, but if the factories are overseas, there is a great carbon footprint being made just to export it back to the US, and then the additional fuel used to transport them to various outlets before they’re actually stocked in-store.
- Quality - Many times when things are made in America, the quality is much higher because thing are being produced on a smaller scale and quality is valued over productivity. Though the price tags are often higher on American made goods, it’s well worth the quality and longevity you receive from products.
- Finding American-made goods is quite difficult, as manufacturers and customer service jobs are being outsourced to foreign countries where they can pay chapter wages, while gradually moving higher-skilled and more-innovative practices out of the US. We continue to lose our leadership,innovation, and economic competitiveness, but at what cost? When business is kept in the US more jobs are created, you’re supporting a system that upholds laws and codes for safe working environments, it’s more eco-friendly, and the quality of goods is exponentially better.