Reducing the number of employees, firms are also reducing wage levels. For example, in the household appliance industry where GE, Whirlpool, Electrolux, and Maytag account for 80% of all production, labor cost have been cut by shifting plants from states where labor is expensive to less costly sites. The result of this is that a new breed of cost effective firms are putting U.S. manufacturing back on the road to profitability.