It is 20 years since the US presidential candidate Ross Perot railed against globalisation, warning of a ‘giant sucking sound’ as millions of jobs left America and went to foreign factories. The presidential hopeful warned that a new economic curse — offshoring — would shut steel mills and factories without government protection. But listen closely and a different sucking sound can now be heard: jobs coming back to America.
A country once panicked about ‘offshoring’ has a new buzzword: ‘re-shoring’. The US recovery is weak and unemployment remains high. But quietly, manufacturing has been making a strong recovery, adding 500,000 jobs since the end of the recession. America, influential analysts believe, is on the verge of a manufacturing renaissance.
The ability to extract gas from shale rocks, by hydraulic fracturing, has helped gas prices collapse to about 20 per cent of the equivalent price of oil, according to HSBC.
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