Manufacturing Jobs Increasing for First Time Since 1998 in the USA

Posted on September 29, 2010 by John Hunter

Surprise! Blue collar jobs are coming back

Manufacturing employment began its decline long before the recession, losing jobs every year since 1998. But since the start of this year, there’s been a 1.6% gain in manufacturing jobs — about twice the pace of growth in other private sector jobs.
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The unemployment rate for manufacturing workers has also shown much greater improvement than for workers overall, dropping to 9.5% in August from 13% in December. That compares to a far more modest improvement to 9.6% from 10% for the overall labor force.
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Gains so far have been concentrated in four industries — automotive, fabricated metals, primary metals and machinery

This is good news for the economy. I believe it is partially due to more companies rethinking off-shoring practices which are flawed and adopting lean manufacturing ideas. As I have written for years USA manufacturing output has continued to increase and still remains by far the largest manufacturer. China is making huge gains by growing their output dramatically (not by the USA’s output decreasing). Manufacturing employment in the USA (and everywhere else – including China) has been decreasing for 20 years. The main stories are not jobs moving but jobs being eliminated by productivity improvement and China growing manufacturing output not a decline in manufacturing output in the USA.

Related: Worldwide Manufacturing Employment Data – 1979 to 2007 – Manufacturing in the USA, and Why Organizations Often Don’t – Top Manufacturing Countries in 2005

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2 Responses to Manufacturing Jobs Increasing for First Time Since 1998 in the USA

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