From Deindustrialization to a Reinforced Process of Reshoring in Europe. Another Effect of the COVID-19 Pandemic?

Abstract

In the middle of the 20th century, economic theories predicted an evolution towards development that involved the tertiarization of the productive structure, with industry losing weight to the benefit of commerce and services. This model justified the deindustrialization of countries when, promoting globalization, large companies relocated production phases to third countries to take advantage of lower labor costs. Since the Great Recession and aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic and other economic factors, globalization seems to be entering a new phase in the third decade of the 21st century, in which Global Value Chains are changing to become even more regional and reshoring is a strategy increasingly employed by large European and North American companies. In the medium term, this global change will have a considerable impact on land systems on a global scale in what could be a new reindustrialization of the old continent. The article presents an investigation carried out on the impact of reshoring in leading European companies in six different industrial branches. The results of the research show how the relocation of the industry in the most developed countries is an incipient trend practiced by the leading European companies.

Keywords

• deindustrialization
• tertiarization
• reshoring
• Europe
• globalization