Invacare responded to communications made by Ted Strickland which accuse Invacare and Invacare board member John Kasich of outsourcing jobs to China.
Though difficult, the changes made in 2006 strengthened Invacare and over the past few years, despite the challenging economy, the Company has added approximately 200 associates to its Ohio campus and rehired many associates.
Just trying to look at the facts here, it should be noted that Invacare is not alone as most of the large homecare and mobility companies (in the US and Europe) outsourced significant production to Asia and other locations.
The basic reasons we see:
- Reimbursement is being slashed by Government agencies in many parts of the world, so costs have to be cut dramatically
- Shareholders expect constantly improving returns
- The market is pricing more competitive as distribution channels change from brick and mortar to online
- The barriers to entry have been lowered because products have less differentiation and often have little patent protection
- Last but not least – several Asian companies that benefited from the initial outsourcing years ago are now entering the markets as direct competitors (but still manufacturing in Asia).
This process is of course not unique to the wheelchair and homecare industry as jobs in the US and Europe are lost to outsourcing.
