The Good Old Days of Manufacturing Are Long Gone
Both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are vowing to engineer a manufacturing renaissance. Such promises evoke 1950s-era memories of strong communities full of ordinary Americans, many without college degrees, earning attractive pay and benefits for their hard work.
Manufacturing bottomed out at around 10 percent of nonfarm workers by 2019. The numbers employed in manufacturing started to recover under President Biden and may continue to rebound. But what results from that growth won’t resemble these misty recollections.
Many of those roles will need to be filled by immigrants. In 1950, when manufacturing was near its peak as a share of total employment, the mostly male working population was growing at a steady clip, thanks in part to a fertility rate of 3.1 children per woman.
The complexion of the working population and its growth rate has since changed. While women and immigrants helped offset the slowing growth of the native-born population, it hasn’t been enough: Two-thirds of respondents to a National Association of Manufacturing survey this past spring said that their biggest challenge was attracting and retaining employees.
