manufacturing

Manufacturers are aware and concerned about the aging of their manufacturing workforce, according to a recent report from the Manufacturing Institute’s Center for Manufacturing Research. The report notes that a recent outlook survey found that attracting and retaining a quality workforce is one of the top challenges facing manufacturers, where nearly one-quarter of the sector’s workforce is age 55 or older. The manufacturing sector is particularly vulnerable to the challenges of an aging workforce due to several factors that sets it apart, including its already older workforce than the overall U.S. labor force, a pronounced skills gap due to the technical nature of manufacturing production work, and ongoing technical change, such as the advance of robotics and artificial intelligence.

A recent report from global management consulting firm A.T. Kearney calls into doubt the ability of U.S. trade policy in encouraging domestic manufacturing firms to reshore their production efforts. Following the government’s release of 2018 trade data, A.T. Kearney published the findings from its sixth annual Reshoring Index, which compares year-over-year changes in U.S. manufacturing gross output to imports of manufactured goods from 14 traditionally low-cost country (LCC) trading partners in Asia.

Ten states from across the country have been selected as part of a unique program designed to grow and strengthen their manufacturers. Over the course of the next year, interdisciplinary state teams will meet together in Washington, D.C., and separately in their home states, to develop and refine strategies impacting manufacturing industries.

A recent report from Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce (CEW) details the changes in manufacturing’s geographic concentration across the country between 1940 and 2016. Manufacturing was the largest source of employment in 15 states in 1940, concentrated in the Northeast and Midwest, and had grown to the largest source of employment in 18 states by 2000, concentrated in the Southeast and central states. However, manufacturing was the largest source of employment in only Indiana and Wisconsin by 2016.

Sending a cautionary note and calling for a new initiative, a new report from MForesight takes a look at the challenges facing America’s leadership in advanced manufacturing. The short-term strategy of “invent here, make there,” has led to the erosion of domestic capabilities and has now become “invent there, manufacture there,” say the authors. They believe that reclaiming the country’s leadership in advanced manufacturing will be a complex and long-term undertaking — one that calls for a long-term government National Manufacturing Initiative.

Reshoring manufacturing companies claim to be able to innovate at increasing rates, but some cite challenges with hiring qualified workers and with the country’s regulatory and trade policy environment, according to a new report from Select USA, a national program led by the U.S. Department of Commerce focused on business investment.  In Reinvesting in the USA: A Case Study of Reshoring and Expanding in the United States, authors from Select USA look at the experiences of six manufacturing companies that chose to reinvest in their U.S. operations, providing detail on what drove them to reshore, challenges and benefits to the move, and general lessons learned. They find that, although the reshoring process was more expensive and time consuming than the case companies expected, local partners such as economic development agencies provided valuable resources to make the process easier. 

In a recent report focused on the impact of the small-scale manufacturing sector, the Urban Manufacturing Alliance (UMA) compiled what they say is a first-ever examination of what this emerging sector looks like and what may help charge its growth. They found an information gap on these businesses, as many of them combine design, art and production, and fall outside of data collection categories used to classify manufacturers. The report begins to identify the role and economic potential of these emerging businesses to help local stakeholders identify actions they might take to grow the small-scale manufacturing sector.

Manufacturing growth is helping fuel one of the longest expansions in the U.S., steadily adding jobs since 2010, according to Economic Innovation Group’s (EIG) recent data brief, Manufacturing’s Real But Patchwork Rebound. While manufacturing job growth has risen over the past two years, the report notes that its growth was broad but uneven. Counties in western states saw the highest annual growth rates from December 2016 to December 2018, and the South saw the largest number of new manufacturing jobs over that period: 173,900. However, authors Kenan Fikri and August Benzow also found that after two years of accelerated growth, the U.S. manufacturing sector is showing signs of slowing down.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) Program generates a sizeable financial return on investment for the federal government, according to a recent study by the Michigan-based W.E. Upjohn Institute. The $140 million invested in MEP during FY 2018 by the federal government generated more than $2.0 billion in increased federal personal income tax, a ROI of roughly 14.4:1 according to Upjohn researchers Jim Robey, Randall Eberts, Brian Pittelko, and Claudette Robey. Based on direct, indirect, and induced jobs generated by projects at MEP centers, the authors also find evidence that total employment in the U.S. was nearly 240,000 jobs higher than it would have been without the program.

Eight U. S. senators introduced a bill last week, endorsed by SSTI and more than two dozen organizations, that would provide performing Manufacturing USA centers with a path for continued federal support, while also better-incorporating the centers into other manufacturing and innovation resources around the country. Senators Chris Coons (D-Del.), Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) represent a bipartisan coalition that is well-positioned to support the legislation through the U. S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. The full text of the bill can be found here.