Due to shifts from a manufacturing market to a service industry in the economy, the manufacturing industry has seen a downward trend in employment rates and its portion in its sector. As of the end of 2024, there are roughly 12.6 million people employed in the manufacturing business. This takes up around about 9.3% of total private sector employment. For reference, in 1960, manufacturing took up a sound 33.7%. In more recent years however, these numbers have stayed consistently around 12 million people, defying the constant downward trend in the past.
Manufacturing employment has been slowly recovering, pushed by an upswing in the number of manufacturing facilities. Over the past decade, manufacturing employment grew by 5% (roughly 12.6 million people) and facilities grew 19% (roughly 401,000 facilities). About half of the sector’s increase in employment over the past 10 years was driven by the food manufacturing subindustry. That subindustry also contributed the most to the increase in manufacturing establishments during this period.
source: https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2025/aug/sluggish-renaissance-us-manufacturing
3 comments:
With the increase in employment in the food manufacturing subindustry, that could be an indicator that more essential industries may see growth in the coming quarters. This is especially possible given the newly implemented tariffs by the U.S. Government.
Funny how manufacturing has fallen so much since the 60s, but it’s managed to hold steady around 12 million jobs in recent years. Food manufacturing seems to be carrying most of that growth. Makes me wonder if other parts of the industry can bounce back the same way or if it’ll mostly stay flat.
With the newly use of robots in a lot of manufacturing industries it will also be very interesting to see the affect that has on it as well. I feel like i always hear about factories shutting down so I love that their hasn't been a huge drop off.
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