Manufacturing employment is up relative to three years in the past. Why a lot dissatisfaction?
Determine 1: Employment in manufacturing, 000’s, s.a. (blue). Supply: BLS.
12 months-on-year by way of March, manufacturing employment is up 1.6% (log phrases). Actual wages are up as nicely, though solely recouping 2020M11 ranges not too long ago (however exceeding pre-pandemic ranges), whereas hours are down vis-a-vis peak 2022M10 ranges.
Determine 2: Manufacturing hourly earnings in 2023$ (blue, left scale), and mixture hours labored in manufacturing (tan, proper scale), each for manufacturing and nonsupervisory staff. Actual wage calculated utilizing chained CPI seasonally adjusted by creator utilizing X-13. Supply: BLS, and creator’s calculations.
Whereas the erosion of actual wages throughout 2022-23 would possibly clarify among the glum, I think one other half is that manufacturing employment development shouldn’t be all the time positioned the place manufacturing was concentrated earlier than. Whereas this might most likely be seen on the county degree, I’m going to look at the state degree. Determine 3 shows year-on-year manufacturing employment development by state versus manufacturing employment share a yr prior.
Determine 3: Manufacturing employment y/y development by way of March 2024 versus manufacturing share of nonfarm payroll employment in March 2023. Nearest neighbor match (window=0.6) (tan line). Washington DC omitted. Crimson dashed strains at nationwide averages. Supply BLS, and creator’s calculations.
Notice that manufacturing intensive states like WI, MI, and IN have expertise reductions in manufacturing employment, whereas these with little manufacturing (NM, NV, and to lesser extent WA) have speedy will increase.
This after all is an ongoing course of, the place manufacturing has been shifting from the Nice Lakes area to the South and elsewhere. Nonetheless, I feel it’s of curiosity to contemplate this course of in a interval when manufacturing employment has been comparatively fixed, and but there’s been a redistribution of employment.
Addendum, Might 13, 2024:
Map of y/y manufacturing employment development, by way of March:
Supply: BLS and creator’s calculations.
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