Reshoring and FDI job announcements topped 244,000 in 2024, and South Carolina keeps showing up on the winning side of it. Why companies are actually reshoring, and what a reshoring decision requires operationally beyond real estate and hiring.
Reshoring and foreign direct investment announcements topped
244,000 manufacturing jobs in 2024, according to the Reshoring
Initiative. That’s not a company deciding where to build its next
plant in the abstract — it’s a real, ongoing shift in where production
actually happens, and South Carolina keeps showing up on the winning
side of it.
Reshoring means bringing production back to the United States after
it was previously moved offshore. It’s usually tracked alongside foreign
direct investment (FDI) — new plants built in the U.S. by non-U.S.
companies — because both trends point the same direction: production
capacity landing domestically instead of overseas. The Reshoring
Initiative, the nonprofit that tracks this data most closely, reported
reshoring plus FDI job announcements exceeded 244,000 in 2024, with its
2025 outlook described as strong but dependent on clear, stable
industrial policy.
| Driver | What it looks like in practice |
|---|---|
| Tariff exposure | Shifting trade policy makes offshore total landed cost less predictable |
| Supply chain risk | Pandemic-era shipping delays exposed how fragile long overseas supply chains actually are |
| Quality and IP control | Closer oversight of production reduces quality drift and intellectual property risk |
| Automation narrowing the labor cost gap | Automation reduces the labor-cost advantage that originally justified moving offshore |
The Port of Charleston gives South Carolina real logistics
infrastructure that matters when a company is deciding where reshored
production should land, and the state already has a dense automotive
and aerospace manufacturing base that reshored suppliers can plug into
rather than building an entire ecosystem from scratch. A reshoring
decision rarely happens in isolation — it’s easier to justify moving a
component back on-shore when the customer it feeds, and several of the
suppliers around that customer, are already established nearby.
Bringing production back on-shore isn’t just a real estate and
hiring decision — it usually means rebuilding process knowledge that
left with the original move offshore years earlier. Companies that
underestimate this tend to relearn expensive lessons about tooling,
quality control, and workforce training that the original offshore
transition quietly absorbed. The manufacturers who reshore successfully
usually treat it as a genuine new plant startup, with the training and
process-development investment that implies, not just a facility
relocation.
Reshoring strategy itself isn’t a standalone course in SCMEP’s
current catalog, but the operational readiness it requires connects
directly to our Supply Chain
and Sustainability training, including our Sustainability Starter
Workshop and energy programs for manufacturers. As a
NIST Manufacturing Extension Partnership affiliate
serving South Carolina manufacturers since 1989, our focus is
helping reshoring manufacturers build the workforce and process
foundation a new or returning facility actually needs.
If your company is planning a reshoring or FDI project in South
Carolina, you can browse the
Supply Chain and Sustainability training catalog or email
the training
team.
Reshoring means bringing manufacturing production back to the United States after it was previously moved offshore. It’s often tracked alongside foreign direct investment (FDI), which covers new U.S. plants built by non-U.S. companies.
According to the Reshoring Initiative, reshoring plus FDI job announcements topped 244,000 in 2024. Figures shift year to year, so check the Reshoring Initiative’s current data for the most up-to-date total.
The Port of Charleston provides strong logistics infrastructure, and the state already has an established automotive and aerospace manufacturing base that reshored suppliers can plug into rather than building a new supplier ecosystem from scratch.
Rebuilding process knowledge and workforce skills that were lost when production originally moved offshore. Companies that treat reshoring as a genuine plant startup, rather than a simple relocation, tend to have a smoother transition.
