Comeback in Factory Jobs Appears to Be for Real
After decades of employment declines, manufacturing is looking like a growth sector — if it can find enough young people willing to work in it.
A new employment era for Americans without college degrees could reshape the US economy and society.
Photographer: Megan Jelinger/AFP/Getty Images
For the first time since the late 1970s, US employment in manufacturing has surpassed the peak set during the previous business cycle. This happened in May 2022, according to the revised 2022 payroll jobs data released last week by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. As of January 2023, the sector employed just short of 13 million Americans on a seasonally adjusted basis, the biggest number since November 2008.
After shrinking for three decades, manufacturing employment in the US appears to have returned to growth. In the 2010s this may have looked suspiciously like a dead-cat bounce after a decade of steep declines, and the latest BLS employment projections still estimate that manufacturing employment will fall by 139,400 from 2021 to 2031. Now that we’re almost 13 years into the new growth trend, I’m thinking that may be too pessimistic.