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American Seating President and COO Tom Bush, left, greets U.S. Vice President Joe Biden Feb. 1 during Biden’s visit to American Seating’s plant in Grand Rapids. Biden’s speech highlighted American manufacturing strength and the need to encourage more companies to make products in the United States. PHOTO: Joe Boomgaard

By Elijah Brumback | MiBiz
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GRAND RAPIDS – For West Michigan, manufacturing is a crucial part of the local economy.  The role manufacturing will play in putting the economic recession in the nation’s rearview, said Vice President Joe Biden, rests in the ability of companies to bring jobs back to the U.S.

In his speech at American Seating Co. Feb. 1, Biden said one out of every four jobs lost in the recession was in manufacturing.

“That’s 2.3 million jobs,” he said. “As of November, we’ve added back just 308,000 of those jobs.”

While companies continue to chip away at that number, Biden said today’s children will start to hear as much about ‘in-sourcing’ as his generation has about outsourcing.

Biden’s visit comes on the heels of President Obama’s State of the Union address, which stressed the need to support manufacturers making products in the U.S. and not give handouts to companies shipping jobs and production overseas. The stop at American Seating highlighted the company’s commitment to make Made-in-the-U.S.A. transportation seating.

Mounting evidence – including increasing costs for shipping, the complexities and vulnerability of dealing with extended supply chains and the rising cost of labor in other parts of the world – has companies bringing work back to America. By 2015, there will be no real advantage to being in China, Biden said.

Biden also emphasized the importance of an educated workforce, calling community colleges the “best-kept secret in America.” He encouraged the partnership of companies and community colleges to develop programs to train the skilled labor that businesses need.

“Because of you workers,” he told the American Seating crowd, “America is coming back and will lead the world in the 21st century in manufacturing.”

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