Manufacturing is a big deal in this country. It drives a lot of jobs, and its success or failure strongly impacts the prices and availability of a lot of stuff we buy every day. The pandemic took manufacturing out behind the woodshed and thumped it hard, but we’ve been slowly recovering over the last few years, and there’s good news to report!
Here are Five Fast Facts about recovering manufacturing jobs:
- 🦠 Pandemic Pause - The shutdowns in 2020 hit everyone hard, but it gave manufacturing a special kind of beating. Around 650,000 jobs were lost at the time.
- 📈 Headline News - As of this year, total manufacturing jobs just crept over 12.9 million, slightly ahead of the 2019 number of 12.8 million. Here’s your token, celebrate recovery everyone!
- 🗺️ Location, Location, Location - Depending on where you live, the recovery could be either especially strong…or not. In Sun Belt and Mountain West states like Florida, Texas, and Utah, manufacturing jobs are well above pre-pandemic levels. But, in Rust Belt states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan, they’re still lagging behind. Urban areas are recovering much faster than rural, seeing 61% of the new jobs since 2019.
- 💻 Specialization Is Key - Inside the big umbrella of “manufacturing,” it also depends on which specific industry you’re talking about. Most are behind pre-pandemic levels, but computers and electronics have been going like gangbusters.
- 🚙 Smaller Piece - When you look at manufacturing in general, it’s a smaller chunk of the total economy than in the past. In 1970, there were about 18 million workers, about 31% of the total private sector. As of last year, it was only 9.7% of all private sector jobs.
🔥Bottom line: Manufacturing might be a smaller piece of the overall pie than in decades past, but it’s still a critical one that provides lots of good paying jobs to Americans, so it’s great to see the numbers coming back! Hopefully it’s a trend that continues!
Do you work in manufacturing?
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