Study: Tech Schools Key to S.C. Manufacturing Rebirth

South Carolina is leading the United States’ manufacturing renaissance but needs to reinvest in its network of technical colleges if it wants to remain in front.  That was the conclusion of “An Action Plan for Strengthening Workforce Development,” a new paper that several state business leaders released Thursday in Spartanburg.

Mark Hartley, the study’s author and a business professor at the College of Charleston, said he hopes state lawmakers read the study as they consider funding levels for higher education, particularly technical colleges, next year.

“For these companies to come here, we’ve got to have people who can take the jobs, who can go in and fill these jobs right now, or these companies are going to locate somewhere else,” he said.

Since the recent recession, South Carolina has recruited more than $19 billion in capital investment —and more than 64,000 new jobs — in manufacturing, and the state has been one of the nation’s fastest growing areas for industry.

Hartley unveiled the paper in Spartanburg along with Mikee Johnson, president of Cox Industries; Otis Rawl of the S.C. Chamber of Commerce; and Lewis Gossett of the S.C. Manufacturers Alliance. They were in the Upstate also to honor Gov. Nikki Haley, who received the 2013 Roger Milliken Defender of Manufacturing Award Thursday night for her success in bringing manufacturers and jobs to the state.

In 2012, The Wall Street Journal pointed out that the nation’s manufacturing sector was defying naysayers and highlighted South Carolina’s position to capitalize on that, particularly given its low taxes and status as a right to work state. Manufacturing already represents more than one-fifth of South Carolina’s gross domestic product.

“But now, we stand on the precipice of potentially much more,” Hartley said.

That’s because of several trends: Wages between Chinese and U.S. workers have narrowed; the value of the U.S. dollar has dropped over the past decade; and rising oil prices make shipping products across the ocean more costly.

As a result, the manufacturing industry has begun returning jobs to the U.S. that had been moved to countries like China, a trend called “re-shoring.”

The study found:

Since January 2011, South Carolina has announced 233 manufacturing expansions, resulting in more than 26,000 new jobs and $9.5 billion in investment.

These expansions include 133 existing companies that enlarged their facilities and 100 new facilities built here.

These expansions represent investments from 21 foreign countries, and more than 60 percent of all manufacturing capital investment was done by foreign firms.

Federal labor figures show that South Carolina’s manufacturing growth since January 2011 was 7.07 percent, almost double that of North Carolina (3.96 percent) and Georgia (3.25 percent)

Inflation-adjusted manufacturing gross domestic product rose 6.8 percent in South Carolina between 2011 and 2012, compared to 5.1 percent in Georgia and 2.7 percent in North Carolina.