Firms heading home as benefits wane in China

Moser wrote that the numbers now stand at "maybe 30,000 to 50,000 jobs/year offshoring, while reshoring is growing at about 30,000 jobs/year”.

"New offshoring is down 70 percent to 80 percent, and new reshoring is up about 1,500 percent.”

According to a report by the RI in July, most US companies returned production home because of higher wages in China and unfavorable currency value. Other reasons cited were quality problems, freight costs and other problems related to delivery, such as deadlines not being met.

Chinese factory workers' expectations are changing. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the average annual urban income jumped to 41,799 yuan ($6,850) in 2011, from 24,721 yuan in 2007.

Rising costs and other issues have persuaded some companies to abandon their China manufacturing dreams. Sleek Audio LLC returned production to Florida after losing hundreds of thousands of dollars in scrap and more in lost sales due to poor quality control in China.

Scovill Fasteners Inc cited rising salaries and the experience of seeing one-quarter of its staff never return from their annual holidays in explaining its decision to go back to Georgia.

Other factors cited for reshoring include high oil prices that make international shipping more costly, friendlier investment climates in the US and parts of Europe and soaring wages in China. Labor costs have shot up by as much as 500 percent in China since the turn of the century, and they're still rising.

However, "salaries for technicians and designers in China are still much lower than in the US and Europe,"said Zhang Jun, director of the China Center for Economic Studies at Shanghai's Fudan University.

Though high-profile companies such as Caterpillar Inc, Google Inc and Ford Motor Co have followed the reshoring trend, finance professors and business consultancies in Shanghai warn against overplaying the situation.

"This reshoring trend is quite prominent, and it's going to continue in the near future. But its fate over the longer term really depends on how well and how quickly China can transform itself from a country driven by investment and imports to one driven by domestic consumption,"said Xu Bin, a professor of economics and finance at the China Europe International Business School, which has a main campus in Shanghai.

For every big-name company that's moved work back home, there are other producers staying put in China.

French Industry Minister Arnaud Montebourg said recently that "only a few"French companies have decided to reshore or given it serious thought. And in July, the Financial Times described the reshoring trend among United Kingdom companies as "modest”.

"Europe is behind the US, but it's starting to push hard,"said Moser. "It is spreading in the Netherlands and France, and there is interest in the UK, Switzerland, Italy and Belgium."

The number of reported cases is limited — perhaps 100 in the US, likely even fewer in Europe — but it hints at the changing dynamics of the global playing field. The US now has highly competitive energy prices, and its workers are among the most highly skilled and efficient in the world.