manufacturing

Those who gather data know that the results collected in 2020 during pandemic shutdowns do not reveal actual trends. This phenomenon was the case for a recent survey by Babson College researchers for the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Adult Population Survey (GEM APS). They found that rates of entrepreneurship, which had been on the rise since 2015, dropped in 2020. However, their newest research shows an upward trend in 2021 and 2022, when the U.S. had the highest levels of entrepreneurial activity since their first survey in 1999. In 2022, 19% of working-age adults were in the process of running a business or were running a company less than 42 months old.

On August 14, 2023, OMB issued final guidance on requirements for all infrastructure projects using federal financial assistance. The final guidance requires preferences for American-made steel and iron products, manufactured products, and construction materials. The release of the final guidance follows the signing in November 2021 of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), which includes the Build America, Buy America Act (BABA).

The inaugural Manufacturing Momentum Summit is an opportunity for federal, state, regional, and local leaders to share their efforts to prepare the workforce required for the advanced defense manufacturing supply chain. Held in conjunction with several partners, including the DoD Manufacturing Technology Program, the Center for Regional Economic Competitiveness, and the American Manufacturing Communities Collaborative, the Summit will be held from September 12 - 14, 2023, in Arlington, VA. Featured topics include a focus on AI’s impact on the manufacturing workforce, practical strategies for engaging employers, and an overview of the 2024 Defense budget. The program can be found here.

An MOU between the Korean Institute for Advancement of Technology, the Korean Battery Industry Association, the Korean Electronics Technology Institute, and the NAATBatt Association, aims to bring Korean battery manufacturers to the U.S. NAATBatt, created in 2008 as an R&D consortium of companies to promote the manufacture of lithium-ion and other advanced batteries in the U.S., focuses on connecting foreign battery industry associations and supporting their members in establishing business relationships. 

A recent project from the National Bureau of Economic Research used data from the Annual Survey of Manufactures to study the characteristics and geography of investments in robots across U.S. manufacturing establishments and find whether it revealed any impact on the economy. The team found that robotics adoption and intensity is more closely related to the size of the establishment than it is to its age. The study presents results on the distribution of robots in U.S. manufacturing by establishment characteristics and geography using new establishment-level data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau’s Annual Survey of Manufacturers for reference year 2018. This is the first establishment-level analysis of the use of robots in U.S. manufacturing, leveraging data on approximately 35,000 establishments. Two thirds of the study’s sample size was from about 187,000 large manufacturing plants, and the remaining sample was a random selection of about 51,000 small manufacturing plants.

The NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP), a national public-private partnership initiative within the US. Department of Commerce dedicated to serving small and medium-sized manufacturers through 51 state centers, including Puerto Rico, recently released its Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 Client Impacts data following a survey of more than 9,000 manufacturing-related clients and businesses.  The MEP network reported assisting U.S. manufacturers in achieving the following: creating or retaining over 116,700 jobs; saving $2.5 billion in costs; generating $18.8 billion in new or retained sales; and, producing $6.4 billion in new client investments.

Last fall, the United States International Trade Commission (USITC) issued its report on the distributional effects of trade and trade policy on under-represented and under-served communities. The report, which had been requested in 2021 by the U.S. Trade Representative Ambassador Katherine Tai, found a disparity in wage and employment among manufacturing workers by race and gender resulting from changes in trade policy. Distributional Effects of Trade and Trade Policy on U.S. Workers, released in October of 2022, was compiled from a series of roundtable discussions between March 1 and April 1, 2022, an academic symposium on April 5-6, 2022, and a public hearing on April 19, 2022. Tai had called for the investigation to better identify and measure the potential distributional effects of U.S. trade and trade policy on U.S. workers, by skill, wage and salary level, gender, race/ethnicity, age, and income level, especially as they affect under-represented and under-served communities.

Despite COVID-induced setbacks continuing to keep some people out of offices and laboratories, new Business Enterprise Research and Development Survey (BERD) data reveals that domestic research and development (R&D) spending, although slowing, is still on an uptrend. From 2018 to 2019, business R&D spending increased by 11.8% (from approximately $441 billion to $492 billion), with new data showing a further increase of 9.1% from 2019 to 2020 ($492 billion to $538 billion).

The National Institute of Standards of Technology (NIST) is seeking public input through Requests for Information (RFIs) for two programs under the CHIPS Act. Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology and NIST Director Laurie E. Locascio refers to the U.S.’s leadership role in semiconductor manufacturing as “critically important to our prosperity and national security” as they are key components in artificial intelligence and quantum computing. Locasio notes that in order to achieve this, America needs a “whole-of-nation” approach, justifying the two RFIs under different CHIPS programs.

In a move to strengthen the domestic manufacturing of batteries for electric vehicles (EVs), the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), announced $2.8 billion for 20 companies in 12 states to extract and process battery materials and manufacture components while creating good-paying jobs. The projects will be funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and will be matched by recipients to leverage more than $9 billion for the production of clean energy.