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Price of fuel driving some jobs back home | Employment News: Transportation | Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas (http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/classifieds/news/jobcenter/transportation/stories/DN-jobsreturn_29emp.ART.State.Edition1.4d8fef9.html - broken link)
Just one story....We had one today on the news around here about a few companies moving back because the hgiher gas prices are forcing jobs back home. Not really so much about this one story but as a whole what do you all think?
I've also been hearing about this - that traffic is down at the malls, and up at the downtown local stores.
It is also going to bring a certain amount of manufacturing back home from overseas - because it is getting more and more expensive to ship manufactured goods here from places like Asia - making it feasible to compete on price by manufacturing in the U.S...
Maybe such low gas prices when NAFTA was enacted are what drove so many over seas so they could bring cheaper goods.
So is it a self correcting factor in a free market? Although not a trend yet it will only take the word getting out to help change things. Like you said it may force us to be more local in our shopping and other areas.
Maybe it's not totally as bad as it seems on the front. If we would have attempted to advance alternative fuels while gas was low we would be ahead of the game right now with probably an influx of these companies moving back....textiles, manufacturing...ect.
I'm hopeful that it does add to the number of jobs here, from a number of perspectives.
- The weak dollar means traveling abroad is very expensive, due to both higher airfares and the low purchasing power of the dollar against foreign currencies. I've heard anecdotal reports that our highways are more crowded than ever this summer, as we stay here in the USA for our vacations. It sure looked that way this past weekend as we took a short trip within Colorado. The travel / restaurants industry here should actually be pretty busy this summer.
- Building or installing all sorts of wind turbines, solar panels, new nuclear power plants and many other technologies will create jobs that cannot be off-shored.
- Drilling HERE for more oil, oil shale, and natural gas can only be done here by our own people.
- There is already, or soon will be, a shortage of skilled workers for the building and operating of oil and gas rigs. Same for lots of infrastructure type construction jobs.
- Not sure much manufacturing will return, but it sure will cost foreign firms a LOT more to ship their stuff here. The weak dollar may do more to bring in manufacturing if the numbers add up. Myself, I think we could use some sort of law that requires foreign firms to make it here if they want to sell it here. I don't care if Toyota outsells GM or Ford here, but I do care that they make them here, or make substantially all of their models here.
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