stats

This week’s release of the Annual Survey of Manufacturers (ASM) from the Census Bureau provides the most detailed statistics on the U.S. manufacturing sector and provides a snapshot of where the sector stood prior to the pandemic. Based on the 2018 summary statistics, the Census Bureau offers the following preliminary insights which can also be seen in the image below.

With the Census Bureau’s July 17 release of the 2019 2nd Quarter update, the bureau’s Business Formation Statistics (BFS) changed format. Originally developed as an experimental research project in the bureau’s Center for Economic Studies in February 2018, the BFS has been redesigned as a formal release, complete with interactive data selection and visualization tools, and relocated with the bureau’s other regularly released economic indicators.

American Community Survey released its one-year estimates for 2017 on Sept. 13, with new statistics on income, poverty, educational attainment and a variety of other topics. ACS reports that many large metropolitan areas saw an increase in income and a decrease in poverty rates between 2016 and 2017. The estimates are based on eight and a half months of data collected from January 2017 through mid-September 2017 when the collection was suspended due to the impact of hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria. In upcoming months, the Census Bureau will release additional ACS data, including 2017 ACS supplemental tables and five-year statistics. SSTI will take a closer look at the data with that release and reveal findings in a future issue of the Digest.

If a concentration of highly skilled workers is an important leading indicator to more widespread economic growth, which regions are leading the way? Using data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) to compare the educational attainment rates of the nation’s largest labor forces from 2005 to 2013, authors from the Cleveland State University Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs determine where America’s highest-skilled jobs are clustering. In ranking the percentage of labor force with a graduate or professional degree in 2013, the list of top five regions is perhaps unsurprising: Washington, D.C., San Jose, Boston, San Francisco, and New York – considered first-tier metros by nearly all accounts. In assessing the percent point change between the percentage of workers with an advanced degree in 2005 and in 2013, however, “second-tier” metros begin to emerge as leaders.

The Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana metropolitan area is home to the largest number of manufacturing jobs in the country, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Approximately 510,900 people are employed by manufacturing firms in the Los Angeles metro, about 100,000 more than in the Chicago-Joliet-Naperville area, which is ranked second for manufacturing employment. Other top metros include New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown and Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington. Of the top 10 metros in which manufacturing jobs represent the highest percentage of total employment, seven are in the Great Lakes region, with several in both Indiana and Wisconsin. Read the release…

U.S. state tax revenues declined for the first time since the recent economic crisis, according to reports from the Rockefeller Institute of Government and the Pew Charitable Trusts. The small drop in revenues is not being viewed as a sign of another fiscal collapse, but does indicate that the recovery may be slowing. For the 26 states in which revenues still have not returned to 2008 levels, the slowdown may suggest that a full recovery could still be years away.

About 70 percent of 2011 U.S. business R&D spending occurred in 10 states, according to a report from the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES). California leads the country in overall business R&D, and nearly every top industry.  Both the San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland and Los Angeles-Long Beach area rank in the top three areas for business research.  Other top states include Washington, with high spending on software R&D, and Texas, a leader in semiconductor and mining research. Read the InfoBrief…

In 2011, U.S.-located companies spent $29.6 billion for extramural (purchased and collaborative) research and development performed by mostly domestic organizations, according to a National Science Foundation (NSF) InfoBrief. Approximately $24 billion in R&D spending was purchased R&D. The additional $5.6 billion was payments to R&D collaborators. Extramural R&D exceeds 10 percent of all R&D expenditures by businesses in 2011, up from an estimated 4 percent in 19991. NSF researchers credit the growth in relative size of domestic extramural R&D by industry to differing rates of growth in total R&D spending among industries and of changes in the importance of external partners within industries. The findings were taken from NSF’s Business R&D and Innovation Survey. Read the brief…

STEM degrees lead to higher salaries and more employment opportunities than other degrees, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). Despite these economic advantages, only 16 percent of 2008 graduates received a STEM degree. The lack of workers with STEM skills has created a difficult hiring environment for many U.S. firms. A recent Brookings Institution study reveals that the lack of STEM graduates has meant that STEM job postings take twice as long to fill as other postings.

Between December 2007 and February 2010, the manufacturing sector loss 2.3 million jobs, according to the Department of Commerce. This drastic decline accounted for about one-quarter of the negative shock experienced during those 26 months and the loss in manufacturing represented one-half the decline in U.S. GDP. In the aftermath of this decline, both public and private sector leaders began to search desperately for ways to stop the bleeding. A new Commerce report, Manufacturing Since the Great Recession, indicates that we may have found some success in halting the hemorrhage.