Manufacturing employment in the United States is expected to decline at an annual rate of 0.7 percent between 2014 and 2024, according to projections made by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
While industries relating to health care and social assistance, construction and mining sectors are expected to experience solid job growth, the manufacturing sector should experience about 814,000 million lost jobs. Only two major sectors, utilities and federal government, are expected to suffer a worse rate of employment change.
Approximately 11.3 million people are expected to have manufacturing jobs in the U.S. in 2024, compared with approximately 12.1 million in 2014. Though these figures are lower than in 2004 when the bureau tallied roughly 14.3 million people working in manufacturing throughout the U.S., the rate of decline between 2004 and 2014 was greater than the decline expected to take place between 2014 and 2024.
Although they will experience job loss, the motor vehicle parts, aerospace product and parts, and navigational, measuring, electrometrical and control instruments manufacturing industries will experience less than a 10 percent decline between 2014 and 2024. The bureau expects what it classifies as the “semiconductor and other electronic component manufacturing” industry to lose about 10 percent of its jobs in the timeframe. The apparel, leather and allied manufacturing industry is supposed to suffer the greatest loss of jobs, with a whopping 46 percent decline over the decade-long span.
