President Obama is talking about ‘insourcing’…bringing jobs back into this country again. That’s great.
But can insourcing really create enough jobs to make a difference? That depends on how on whether the U.S. is becoming competitive in a broad range of industries, or whether it’s a limited phenomenon.
That’s why PPI has proposed a Competitiveness Audit as an essential part of a job-creation strategy.
The Competitiveness Audit will compare the price of selected imports with the comparable domestically produced goods and services. That will tell us the size of the ‘price gap’ between imports and domestic production.
The initial results of the Competitiveness Audit will enable us to identify industries that are globally competitive (domestic prices are below import prices, so the price gap is negative); industries that are currently uncompetitive (domestic prices are significantly above import prices); and industries that are ‘near-competitive’ (domestic prices only slightly above import prices).
The results of the Competitiveness Audit will enable businesses and economic development agencies to target their insourcing efforts to industries that are ‘near competitive’, where a bit of government help could make a big difference.
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