I grew up in Detroit. I watched manufacturing leave. I watched factories close. I watched my dad’s friends lose their jobs when everything moved to China and Mexico. Been hearing about “bringing jobs back” for decades, and it always felt like empty promises.

But something’s actually happening now. And I need to talk about it.

244,000 jobs were reshored or created through foreign direct investment in 2024. That’s real. That’s not a politician’s promise – that’s actual jobs that came back or were created here instead of overseas.

Is it enough to replace everything we lost? No. Not even close. But it’s something. And something is more than we’ve had in a long time.

What’s actually happening: Companies are building semiconductor plants in Ohio and Texas. Battery factories in Tennessee. Intel is investing $28 billion in new U.S. facilities. Whirlpool is moving production from China to Ohio.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology says reshoring is accelerating. COVID exposed how vulnerable global supply chains are. When China locked down, American factories couldn’t get parts. Ships got stuck. Everything fell apart.

Companies learned a lesson: being on the other side of the planet from your suppliers is risky. Having everything in one country that might have different political goals than you is risky. Maybe making stuff closer to home makes sense.

My buddy’s kid just got hired at a battery plant in Ohio. Good pay. Benefits. The kind of manufacturing job that was supposed to be extinct. He’s learning skills that’ll be valuable for decades. That’s the first time in years I’ve heard someone from back home say they got a factory job they’re actually excited about.

The honest truth: It’s not all perfect. Labor costs here are higher. There’s a skills gap. Building new factories takes time. But the direction is finally right. Jobs are coming back instead of leaving.

The Reshoring Initiative has been tracking this for years. They say companies are realizing that when you factor in shipping costs, supply chain risks, quality control issues, and intellectual property theft, making stuff in America isn’t actually that much more expensive than making it overseas.

The CHIPS Act is helping too. Billions in incentives for semiconductor manufacturing. Intel, TSMC, Samsung – they’re all building plants in the U.S. Ohio is becoming “Silicon Heartland.” Arizona is getting chip fabs. These are high-tech, high-paying jobs.

Now, there are problems. Supply Chain Management Review notes that about 500,000 manufacturing jobs remain unfilled because we don’t have enough trained workers. We spent decades telling kids to go to college and get office jobs. Now we need people who can run robotics and manage digital production lines, and we don’t have them.

What needs to happen: Vocational training. Apprenticeships. Taking manufacturing seriously as a career path instead of something to look down on. The jobs are coming. We need to train people to do them.

I’m not saying everything is fixed. Manufacturing employment is still way below where it was in the 1970s. Automation means fewer workers per factory. The tariff situation is a mess. Lots of challenges ahead.

But factories are actually being built in America again. Jobs are actually coming back. After watching my hometown hollowed out for 40 years, that means something to me.

244,000 jobs reshored. Finally, some good news from the industrial heartland.