WASHINGTON – The American Chemistry Council (ACC) issued its 2014 edition of the Guide to the Business of Chemistry, a detailed economic profile of the chemistry industry and its contributions to the U.S. and world economies.
American chemistry is the global leader in production, providing over fifteen percent of the world’s chemicals and representing twelve percent of all U.S. exports. It is also one of America’s largest manufacturing industries, an $812 billion enterprise providing 793,000 high-paying jobs. For every one chemistry industry job, nearly 7.5 others are generated in other sectors of the economy, including construction, transportation, and agriculture, totaling nearly seven million chemistry-dependent jobs.
“2014 has proven to be another year of robust and sustained expansion for the American chemical industry, now larger than either the motor vehicle or aerospace industries,” said ACC President and CEO Cal Dooley. “With continued access to abundant supplies of natural gas from shale deposits, the economics of shale gas continue to create a new competitive edge that is revitalizing the industry, and the U.S. is now the most attractive place in the world to invest in chemical manufacturing. Our 2014 Guide to the Business of Chemistry is our most comprehensive resource profiling the economics of this growth engine industry,” Dooley added.
“The business of chemistry is the building block for everything around us,” said the publication’s lead author, ACC Chief Economist Kevin Swift. “Supporting nearly 25 percent of the U.S. GDP, the business of American chemistry is vital to continued economic expansion, job creation, and the return of a strong domestic manufacturing sector,” he said.
Prepared annually by ACC’s Economics and Statistics Department, The Guide to the Business of Chemistry divides the $812 billion business into more than thirty categories of production, ranging from inorganic chemicals to plastic resins; from adhesives and sealants to oilfield chemicals; and from fertilizers to pharmaceuticals and consumer products. Within each segment the report highlights distinct characteristics, including growth dynamics, markets, new developments, and other issues affecting each sector.
Individual sections of the guide cover a variety of topics in detail, including financial performance, U.S. and global trade, innovation, capital investment, employment, environmental, health and safety statistics, energy, and distribution. Charts and graphs help illustrate data and provide comparisons for the past ten years.