Podcast appearances and mentions of irene yuan sun

If you listen to politicians, it may seem like America is losing its manufacturing jobs to China. If you’ve listened to our show before, you know that’s not the whole picture. Automation has taken many jobs, China isn’t the only manufacturing powerhouse, and even when jobs do move to China... they don’t necessarily stay there. In fact, some Chinese manufacturing is moving to an area of the world you might not expect: Africa. Irene Yuan Sun, author of the forthcoming book The Next Factory of the World, has studied this shift, and she thinks that it’s a big deal.

Irene Yuan Sun, a consultant at McKinsey, explains why so many Chinese entrepreneurs are setting up factories in Africa. She describes what it’s like inside these factories, who works there, what they’re making—and how this emerging manufacturing sector is industrializing countries including Lesotho and Nigeria. Sun’s new book is “The Next Factory of the World: How Chinese Investment Is Reshaping Africa.”

Manufacturing jobs may have moved to China… but not all of them have stayed there.

America thinks of itself and its companies as exceptional. And because of that, we’ve ignored the pitfalls of globalization. For decades, blue-collar American jobs have moved to China. Why some of those same jobs are now moving to Africa. Julia Child was a chef, author, TV star... and coder? How expanding our definition of coding helps us look at the world in a whole new way.