Manufacturers Aren’t Ready for Work Coming Back to the US
There’s a growing narrative that AI is the only force reshaping work, as if a tidal wave is just offshore, ready to crash. In meetings and strategy sessions, it’s almost all anyone talks about. Will it replace jobs? Turbocharge productivity?
Yes, artificial intelligence is going to change a lot. But so is something else — something more immediate and more familiar. Work itself is coming home.
This isn’t the kind of manufacturing America offshored decades ago. What’s returning looks very different: semiconductors, sensors, software and precision tools.
Some might be surprised to learn that the U.S. is the second-largest producer of medium- and high-tech manufactured goods globally and showing potential to expand even more.
The problem is most manufacturers simply aren’t ready.
A Labor Shortage No One Is Talking About
A few months ago, I visited a city preparing to become a major hub for chip production. The new facility stretches across hundreds of acres — huge, modern and full of promise. But local leaders quietly admitted something troubling: They don’t have the skilled workers to run it. There aren’t enough of them in the region. And truthfully, not enough in the country.
This isn’t an isolated case. In cities including Phoenix; Columbus, Ohio; and Syracuse, New York, advanced manufacturing projects are underway, from chip plants to robotics hubs. The pattern keeps repeating. The jobs are coming, often in large numbers, but the workforce isn’t ready to fill them. And it won’t stop at the factory floor. These projects create ripple effects across nearly all industries, which will need to evolve in response.
The Three-Year Window for Leaders
AI may shape the next decade, but over the next three years, business leaders face a more immediate challenge. How do you prepare your company and your people for the work that’s already arriving?
If you’re leading an organization, this is what matters most right now.
Let’s start with the work itself. The jobs coming back aren’t basic factory roles. They demand technical skill, critical thinking and the ability to work across systems and teams. A production-line worker today might spend more time with a touchscreen than a wrench — tuning systems, tracking outputs, troubleshooting problems. This isn’t press-a-button work anymore.
That shift places new pressure on middle managers. In many companies, that layer still acts like a human inbox — gathering information, summarizing it and passing it upward. But the new reality calls for something very different: analysis, judgment, leadership. Managers need to solve problems, not just pass them along. If they can’t turn information into action, they’re not helping the business move forward.
I saw this play out recently when a company I advised realized how many decisions had to climb three levels just to get a sign off. Progress was stalling. So, they trained their managers to take ownership and backed them with the tools and authority to act. Within months, momentum returned. Morale lifted. People actually stepped up to lead.
And then there’s agility. That’s the ability to shift and adapt your workforce quickly. Not just in software teams, but across the organization. Can someone in your company learn an entirely new role in six months? Can you reconfigure a team to meet a new demand without losing momentum? Most leaders say they want to move faster. Very few can explain what that means or how they’ll measure it. But that’s what agility is: a real, operational capability.
Workforce Strategy Is Now Business Strategy
To meet this moment, companies need to get serious about building systems that develop talent, not just manage it. That starts with tracking skills more than job titles. Think of it as a capability map: who can do what, who can learn what and where the gaps really are.
Entry-level workers need stronger skills, sharper instincts and a deeper grasp of how the business actually works. Managers need more than encouragement. They need clear expectations, practical tools and the authority to act. It’s not enough to say “lead.” They must be shown what leadership looks like in today’s environment — how to diagnose, decide and drive action.
And people development deserves the same level of investment as any major product rollout. No one would launch a new platform without infrastructure. Why would you launch a workforce strategy without one?
Some companies are already trying new approaches. They’re building internal academies or apprenticeship-style programs to bring workers up to speed. What matters most isn’t the format, but the alignment. Training has to track with transformation.
One comparison comes up often: Train people the way military academies train officers. Don’t just prepare them to follow instructions. Teach them to lead, to think ahead, to solve problems before they happen. That’s how you build a future-ready workforce.
Education will have to adjust as well. Colleges are moving too slowly. Schools and employers need to be more tightly connected. More learning has to happen on the job. Hands-on experience will matter more than credentials alone. But companies can’t wait for academia to catch up. They have to lead by urging college partners to change curriculum faster to teach things like prompt engineering or by developing co-op models that get students work-ready faster.
This Is Bigger Than HR
A subtle shift is happening. More leaders are beginning to understand that this isn’t just an HR issue. It’s a business issue and, for some, a survival issue. If the talent a company needs doesn’t exist, that bench will have to be built. And leaders will need to move faster than their competitors to get that done.
Yes, AI is going to change everything. But the first thing it changes is the nature of work itself. And close behind, reshoring is changing where that work gets done. The companies that recognize both, and act on it, will be the ones that stay ahead.
