Here’s a thought for our country’s ad agencies and design shops:

With unemployment rate going as high as 10% in some states, it seems socially irresponsible to farm out production and manufacturing projects offshore. This is specially true in the production of in-store displays. The old practice of automatically sending out jobs to developing countries because of costs must be revisited.

A recent report by the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai showed that the rising value of the yuan and increasing labor costs have diminished China’s competitiveness as a base for inexpensive manufacturing. Add that with shipping costs and the ever increasing eagerness of US manufacturers to lower their price structure, and the practice of domestically producing makes more and more sense.