News & Insights Published August 9, 2017

US Manufacturing Industry Enjoys Longest Growth Streak in 30 Years but Growth in 2016 Slows

Today, Headlight Data released its annual rankings of the fastest-growing US counties in manufacturing. Visit our News page to see top performing counties in 8 selected manufacturing industries and manufacturing overall.

Starting in 2011, the US Manufacturing Industry has created jobs every year since then, a 6-year expansion that exceeds the 5-year expansion experienced 1994-1998. The Manufacturing industry has created nearly 500,000 new jobs in the last 6 years, led by the following twelve industries, in order of growth rate:

  • Beverages : 39% growth (66,000 new jobs)
  • Transportation equipment: 20% (270,000)
  • Plastics and rubber products: 12% (75,000)
  • Wood products: 9% (31,000)
  • Fabricated metal products: 8% (109,000)
  • Food products: 7% (95,000)
  • Machinery: 5% (50,000)
  • Nonmetallic mineral products: 4% (15,000)
  • Primary metals: 3% (10,000)
  • Electrical equipment and appliances: 2% (9,000)
  • Furniture and related products: 1% (6,000)
  • Chemicals: 1% (10,000)
 

Manufacturing industries that have lost jobs are:

  • Tobacco: -32% growth (-6,000 jobs)
  • Apparel: -23% (-39,000)
  • Printing: -15% (-76,000)
  • Paper: -9% (-36,000)
  • Textile mills: -8% (-10,000)
  • Textile product mills: -8% (-10,000)
  • Computer and electronic products: -8% (-88,000)
  • Petroleum and coal products: -3% (-4,000)
  • Leather and allied products: -0.2% (-100)
 

But, a strong word of caution: manufacturing growth is slowing significantly. The Manufacturing Industry grew just 0.03% in 2016, creating only 4,000 new jobs. While these numbers will be revised when 2017 data is released, a clear trend is shown by the following chart:

Within the US, several counties stood out in their ability to attract the most jobs in manufacturing industries:

Click the industries in the county list above to link to complete lists of best and worst performing counties in the US for each manufacturing industry.

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countieseconomyjobsindustryjob-growth