The loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs to offshore countries has been under way for the past three decades and will continue into the foreseeable future, says UC Davis industry scholar Martin Kenney, who has co-edited a new book "Locating Global Advantage: Industry and Dynamics in the International Economy."

In examining what has happened to U.S. manufacturing jobs industry by industry, his book details the transfer of American jobs to other countries in the apparel and textile, vehicle, television, personal computer, semiconductor and other high-tech industries.

The book reveals several surprises. For instance, while there are no longer any hard-disk drives produced in the United States, 60 percent of the wages in the hard-disk industry are paid to American workers.

"It's all in the higher-paid jobs of design, marketing, human resources and coordination," he says, adding that the American challenge will be to keep those jobs. In fact, if U.S. companies had not shipped those manufacturing jobs to Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia in the 1990s, Kenney says that Japan, with its able complement of service and manufacturing abilities, could have put the U.S. hard-disk manufacturers out of business.

The "just-in-time" inventory trend means that China may not become the destination for high-fashion manufacturing because Mexico is closer to U.S. consumers, Kenney says. In this case, the volatile consumer tastes in fashion are influencing garment manufacturers to try to turn inventory around in less than a week.

Although it can take two to four weeks for a shipment to arrive from China, Mexican apparel factories, while more expensive, are located strategically closer to American fashion consumers. Garment manufacturers risk less by paying slightly more to Mexican workers.