This is "bad reporting", in my view, because it (intentionally) baits readers into drawing sweeping conclusions ("Trumps policies have been a complete disaster, I knew it!") from very little data and small effect sizes.
This happens a ton on both sides of the political spectrum and I hate it.
On the topic itself:
If you want to bring formerly offshored industries back at scale (a overall dubious plan in my opinion), then high unemployment is a good starting point because it helps avoid labor shortages and price spikes in unrelated industries.
But what CNN reports is too small to have much of an effect on that.
This strikes me as overly simplistic and optimistic.
The real world is not a zero-sum-game where if someone loses someone else wins.
Macroeconomics in today's world is an interconnected hot mess where I wouldn't dare to infer much except for that simple cause and effect chains surely do not work.
What you deduce might be true in an otherwise stable and sunny economic climate, but we're far from that.
- Trumps active hand in messing with the US economy (Going on an immigrant (labor) hunt, firing a FED governor and threatening Powell, buying into Intel, imposing tariffs coughed up by an LLM)
- Unprecedented amounts of money are being singularly invested into "AI" and not much else
- Consumer prices for Americans as a compound combination of tariffs and an expected weaker dollar if interest rates go down aren't playing well with peak unemployment
Taking that all in, comparatively to only a couple of months ago, this setup is by far not the most desirable investment climate in the US for foreign investment.
And while bringing back offshored industries sure sounds nice on paper, I'm wondering how that's gonna play out with a) historically high CoL in the US leading to b) higher wages required for the supposed high quality jobs coming back leading to c) high prices to purchase said goods.
I'm being a bit facetious here, but if the actual plan is to bring back comparatively low-wage, labor intensive industries to the US, then I think high unemployment at the start of the process is exactly what you want; otherwise, you will cannibalize existing industries for the required labor, inflating prices for everything.
I do not think that doing this is a good idea, especially not at scale, and I believe that the tariff incentives as they currently stand are insufficient to achieve this anyway (but "sufficient" increases to tariff levels are unpalatable and infeasible).
This happens a ton on both sides of the political spectrum and I hate it.
On the topic itself:
If you want to bring formerly offshored industries back at scale (a overall dubious plan in my opinion), then high unemployment is a good starting point because it helps avoid labor shortages and price spikes in unrelated industries.
But what CNN reports is too small to have much of an effect on that.