Rocklin Company Returning Jobs To America
ROCKLIN (CBS13) - The more than two million out of work Californians want to know where the jobs are.
President Obama, running for re-election, is well aware of America's need for more jobs.
In a recent four minute address he promoted his efforts to bring overseas jobs back to America, dropping catch-words like "insourcing" and "made in America."
While they may sound good in a speech the reality is America has been losing jobs via outsourcing and offshoring at an alarming rate for many, many years.
"Well, the outsourcing took place starting 20 years ago," says Sacramento State economics professor George Jouganatos.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics America's largest 100 markets have lost more than a million manufacturing jobs in the last four years alone; six thousand of those jobs have left the Sacramento region since 2008.
"The reason why we were doing it is primarily less costly labor," says Jouganatos.
It's cheaper to make the stuff overseas than it is to make it here in the U.S.
In the decade leading up to 2010 U.S. companies eliminated nearly five million manufacturing jobs in America.
When asked if is it patriotic to make their product in America, an employee of Rocklin, California-based company Gutterglove, Inc., says emphatically "Absolutely, absolutely."
And he ought to know.
His name is John Quincy Adams; and yes, he is a direct descendant of the John Quincy Adams, one of America's founding fathers.
He goes on to say "I believe the forefathers – you work for what you get."
Gutterglove builds rain gutters.
In 2003 Robert Lenney's company started making and selling rain gutters.
Lenney says at first it was too expensive to make the rain gutters here in the U.S.
"It was either go out of business or it was go to China."
So they went to China where the rain gutters were made until recently.
Last year Lenney and his company landed a big contract with the U.S. military to put rain gutters on buildings on military bases in America.
But there was a catch— the federal government required that the rain gutters be made in America.
So Lenney went to work and quickly discovered that "Made in America" is not as expensive as it used to be.
He found a company in Los Angeles to manufacture the gutters at a competitive price.
When asked if the manufacturers are getting more competitve now Lenney says "I would say the manufacturers are getting very competitive now. I would say the manufacturers are getting very competitive. I couldn't believe it. I sctached my head and I looked at the quotes."
Nowadays Lenney has 25 employees who add the finishing touches to his gutters in Rocklin before they're shipped to his customers nationwide.
He hopes to add another 20 employees by the end of the year.
He'd like to see other American companies selling products that say "Made in America."
"I really think that they can do it too. I mean I don't know about all the other industries but I'm hoping if they think really hard, just rethink in how they do their business, maybe they can too."
