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The other thing to take note of is that they can produce higher quality instruments - there is a factory in south korea that is larger than any US factory. They make low end instruments for a lot of the big names - but they can make higher end stuff as well. Eventually China will compete on the higher end instruments as well - there's nothing keeping them from doing so except the perception of the US consumers.

Trev

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http://www.PeakeGuitars.com

I'm a little late on the labour debate but have to put my 2 cents in.

Last time I asked Chinese labour in most manufacturing was still in the cents/hour range. $2.50 an hour? try $2.50 a day.
Things are changing every day as their society changes and makes demands on the upper class and government but I wouldn't expect anyone will be competing with Chinese labour any time in the next couple decades.

I know there is a huge range of skills and variation between different shops but your average guitar factory worker isn't a luthier. You get one simple task and you get good at it with extreme repetition. It can take years to get from one end of the shop to the other and actually learn all the steps to producing a guitar. When you're producing 10-20-100+ guitars at a time everything is jigged up and coordinated to the point that it's mostly unskilled labour.
In the US/Canada a $10-20 dollar/hr range is more realistic with the majority of employees being well within the lower half of that range.

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$2.50 per hour or below is basically "free" in American terms. It costs us that much to take a leak...!

I definitely agree with your $10-$20/hr for the average guitar factory. One thing that I did not like was the amount of repetition & the mental & physical consequences of this. I think it's unhealthy in both regards. I'd much rather see people switch jobs every now and again.

Trev

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http://www.PeakeGuitars.com