They've tried Mexico, couldn't get the quality they wanted.
That's part of the total cost equation. The skill levels of the available labor pool and/or the cost to bring the skill levels up to where they need to be are just one of many factors. That is why you often see the local educational systems being mentioned in the efforts to attract modern manufacturing facilities.
This is one reason that I say that the growing investments, by the manufacturing firms I listed earlier, is further proof of the intelligence and skills that disprove the Southern stereotypes.
As an interesting point, did you know that GM was able to achieve higher quality numbers at a Mexican Buick plant than they were able to at an upper Mid-West facility? I'm not laughing about it, I just found it rather stunning...
