Manufacturing Statistics 2026

Industry overview

The US manufacturing sector turned in another year of measured growth in 2025, with output up roughly 2.4% over 2024 and capital spending climbing at its fastest pace since the early 2010s. Reshoring activity continued to drive new facility announcements, particularly in semiconductors, electric vehicle components, and advanced materials.

Inflation cooled across most input categories, though steel and copper remained volatile. Labor stayed tight but eased somewhat from the 2022 peak. The big shifts came from automation and AI deployment on the plant floor, which several major OEMs cited as the single biggest productivity driver of the year.

Employment landscape

Manufacturing employment hit roughly 12.9 million in early 2025, the highest level since the 2008 financial crisis. That number has climbed in five of the past six years after decades of decline, reversing a pattern many economists assumed was permanent.

Wages have also risen sharply. Average hourly earnings for production workers passed $30 for the first time in 2024 and ran near $32 by mid-2025. Skilled tradespeople (welders, machinists, technicians) routinely earn well above that, with shortages in those roles widely reported.

Top states by manufacturing output

US manufacturing remains concentrated in a handful of states. California leads in absolute output, driven by aerospace, computers and electronics, and food processing. Texas climbed past Ohio for second place in 2023 thanks to petrochemicals, electronics, and electric-vehicle production. The Midwest still dominates per-capita: Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan all have manufacturing shares of state GDP well above 15%.

Sub-sector breakdown

Manufacturing is not a monolith. Three large sub-sectors (transportation equipment, food manufacturing, and computers and electronics) together account for nearly 40% of total US manufacturing value. The full picture is more diverse, with chemicals, machinery, fabricated metals, and petroleum and coal products all contributing significant share.

Exports and trade

US manufactured exports reached $1.51 trillion in 2024, with the top destinations being Canada, Mexico, China, the United Kingdom, and Germany. Aircraft, semiconductors, refined petroleum products, and machinery dominate the export mix. Trade policy shifts and supply-chain restructuring since 2020 have brought meaningful production back to North America, but the overall trade deficit in goods remains large.

What this means for manufacturers in 2026

Two forces are reshaping how industrial buyers find suppliers in 2026. The first is the maturing reshoring trend, which has filled order books and tightened supplier networks. New OEM programs are sourced regionally more often than at any point in the past two decades. The second is the rise of AI-driven discovery, where procurement engineers begin sourcing research inside ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude before they ever open Google.

For manufacturers, both shifts reward the same underlying behavior. Be specific in public about what you make, the materials you handle, the tolerances you hit, the certifications you carry, and the industries you serve. The shops that publish that detail clearly, with structured data and authoritative cross-references, get found. The ones that hide behind vague brochure copy get filtered out before the buyer ever hears their name.

The fundamentals haven't changed. The discovery surface has.