While the winners of this week’s midterm election were celebrating with hot pizza and cold beer, election watchers were calling it one of the most important midterms in recent history given the focal point on jobs. Voters gravitated to candidates they deemed were best for business, and subsequently, jobs and job creation.
Like much of the country, we too have listened in the recent years to government leaders and economists talk about the need for job creation in this country, and to stem the offshoring trend. At times, though, we’d be scratching our heads because as a small-to-medium sized business (SMBs), all that KettlePizza and tens of thousands of companies just like ours ever wanted to do was to create jobs in the USA and keep them here.
Over the years, SMBs have consistently created new jobs without any intention of sending them overseas. Many large organizations, however, have completely rebuilt their business model to integrate offshoring into their DNA. While this practice may make business sense in certain cases (where offshoring takes advantage of an expertise or resources that don’t reside in the USA), for the most part big companies offshored millions of USA jobs over the years for one reason: to take advantage of the lower cost of labor in other countries.
Did you know that in October alone small businesses created 102,000 jobs in the USA? That’s nearly half of all the jobs that were created in the country last month across all company sizes.
When we started KettlePizza four years ago, a significant value proposition for the company was to create jobs in the USA and to support other companies that do the same. Today we continue to be a “Made in the USA” company. We’re proud that KettlePizza components — the wooden handles, pizza stones, steel, pizza peels and other key parts — are sourced here. It’s now interesting to see that the decades-old practice of sending certain jobs to other countries, where the cost of labor have historically been less than in the USA, is now seeing somewhat of a reversal. It’s called “reshoring” and it’s due to rising overseas wages.
Who would have guessed?
What do they call it when jobs are created here and stay here? We’ll leave that one up to the experts. We’re sure there’s a word for it. But whatever it’s called, one thing we do know with absolute certainty is that Americans love their pizza and we’re thrilled to be part of this country’s $40B+ pizza industry.
The next time you’re in the market for a new service or a new product, take a good look at a business that started in the USA and kept it here.
You won’t be sorry. Promise.
Oh, and don’t forget to mark your calendars for November 29 – that’s Small Business Saturday. We’ll be following up soon with a few suggestions on how to support the small businesses that are there for you throughout the year.
And, as always, thank you for your business!
