NEW Survey: Majority of Manufacturers Likely to Bring Production and Sourcing Back to North America Post-Coronavirus

Thomas, the world’s leading industrial sourcing and marketing platform, is conducting monthly surveys to uncover coronavirus’ continued impacts on North American manufacturing. Based on responses from more than a thousand companies to our surveys in February and March 2020, comparatively we found:

• Fewer Reported Impacts on Manufacturing: Only 45% of companies reported that they are impacted by the outbreak, compared to last month’s 60%.

• Increased Concerns on Price Surges: We witnessed a significant drop in concerns for disrupted shipping and logistics from 71% (February) to 42% (March). The concern over offshore factory suspension and production restrictions is also easing down from 55% to 36%, respectively. However, there is a significant rise in concern (from 12% up to 22%) regarding price surges for cost of goods.

• 1 in 2 U.S. Manufacturers Now Seeking Domestic Sources of Supply: We saw a reduced desire in sourcing internationally (from 43% to 34%), and an increased number of respondents (47% from 43%) are now looking to source in North America. 

• Creative Coping Strategies Starting to Emerge: From increasing capacity to support customers impacted by degraded supply chains to using live feed cameras to deliver machinery acceptance tests, we see American ingenuity at its best.

• Impacts on Oil Price Fluctuation: 53% reported they are feeling an impact and shared their insights on how this will both positively and negatively affect the downstream industries, from energy to fashion to logistics.

Get the full survey results here.