In a recent NYSE interview, a reporter asked me if my focus on Made-in-America manufacturing makes me afraid of having to compete with the cost of China manufacturing goods. My response surprised her.

“Not at all,” I said. “As a matter of fact, it is highly possible for Made-in-America pricing to be at parity or even lower than the cost of China-made goods.”

Here’s why: Automation addresses an old competitive disadvantage while simultaneously creating a new advantage.

America has spent decades assuming that manufacturing migrated overseas because American labor was too expensive. That assumption was once true, but automation has changed the equation. When labor becomes a smaller percentage of unit cost, the issues of location, transportation, inventory, quality, supply-chain resilience, speed, and intellectual-property control (all of which we can control) become much more important.

But we face a conundrum: We still need people, but automation changes the nature of the people we need.

That includes the humans who manage and control the automation. It also includes the electricians, welders, engineers, and other skilled trades that form the base of the manufacturing pyramid. The need for these roles is greater than ever before.

U.S. industrial robot installations increased 11% in 2025 to roughly 38,000. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projects nearly 1 million production-job openings annually from 2024 through 2034, largely because workers retire or leave occupations. BLS also expects industrial machinery mechanics—the people who maintain increasingly automated plants—to be one of manufacturing’s strongest growth occupations. 

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