Changes in China could mean more North American jobs, Home Depot chief says

ATLANTA: The rising value of the Chinese yuan, higher pay for Chinese workers and $136-a-barrel oil may mean more factory jobs in North America, the Home Depot chief executive, Frank Blake, says.

The world’s largest home-improvement chain is looking for factories in the United States, Mexico and Canada to build some products that are getting too expensive to make in China, Blake said Thursday in an interview in New York. The Atlanta-based Home Depot imports about 13 percent of the goods it sells, and most of that is made in China, said a spokeswoman.


A shift in production from China back to North America might help blunt job losses in the region, where U.S. payrolls have declined five straight months. Shrinking employment in the U.S. has hurt consumer confidence and slowed consumer spending, which accounts for two-thirds of the economy.

“There’s a natural cycle to these,” Blake said. “Some of the low-labor, value-added stuff I suspect already is looking for other countries. That’s the nature of this.”

Bloomberg