In keeping with muted manufacturing job growth reported for 2019, the Labor Department recently found the U.S. added 3,000 manufacturing jobs in August.
Overall, the nation added 130,000 jobs in August and the unemployment rate remained steady at 3.7%. Manufacturing hiring has slowed in 2019, with the sector adding 27,000 jobs overall this year, compared to 265,000 jobs gained in 2018.
Today, we’re exploring the Labor Report in detail as it relates to U.S. manufacturing to help you gauge the health of specific industries.
September’s labor report follows last week’s announcement by the Institute for Supply Management, which found U.S. manufacturing contracting for the first time in three years.
U.S. manufacturing activity now stands at 49.1%, down 2.1% from July’s reading of 51.2%.
New orders, production and employment have all contracted, marking the first time since 2016 the ISM has recorded contraction in the sector.
Related: U.S. Manufacturing Activity Contracts for the First Time in Three Years
These numbers were in line with a similar survey conducted by IHS Markit and reflects stalled industrial output numbers reported by the Federal Reserve.
Durable Goods: Electronics Offsets Losses in Machinery, Fabricated Metals
The 3,000 jobs added in the U.S. manufacturing sector were entirely limited to the non-durable goods category.
Durable goods manufacturing remained unchanged over the month. This bucks the trend of the past several months in which durable goods led gains, mostly due to robust gains in the transportation equipment industry.
The durable goods manufacturing category accounts for 12 million of the nation’s 17.5 million manufacturing jobs.
Jobs losses in the durable goods category were largely led by machinery and fabricated metals, of which each slashed jobs by 1.7%.
Taking a year-over-year look, machinery employment rose a half percent since August of 2018 while jobs in fabricated metals were unchanged.
However, losses in machinery and fabricated metals were offset by employment gains in computer and electronic products, which grew by 2.3%.
Employment in electronic products has generally been strong over the year, with jobs up 2.5% over August of 2018.
According to IndustrySelect’s live database of U.S. manufacturers, growth in the U.S. electronics industry outpaced overall U.S. manufacturing growth in the past year.
7.3% of U.S. electronics manufacturers reported an increase in sales and/or employment over the past twelve months to IndustrySelect. This is compared to a 5% increase for the manufacturing sector overall..
Non-Durable Goods: Plastics Leads Gains
The 3,000-job gain in non-durable goods manufacturing was overwhelmingly led by the rubber and plastics industry which grew by 2.8% over the month.
The gain in plastics reflects recent data collected by MNI on the plastics industry, which found employment in the sector rose by 2.5% over the past year.
Gains were also shown in the miscellaneous nondurable goods manufacturing category, which includes a diverse set of products such as toys, medical products and sporting goods, grew by 2.8%.
Most other industries in the durable goods category were virtually unchanged, with only chemicals and petroleum/coal products posting a measurable loss, down 1.2% and 1%, respectively.
The non-durable goods sector accounts for 4.7 million of the nation’s manufacturing jobs.
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