Good News About Manufacturing . . . That You Shouldn’t Get Too Excited About

The new EMSI data (2011.3) just came out last week. We always think of the manufacturing sector as one of perennial interest. For a little context, here’s what the manufacturing sector has done historically:

Obviously, that’s massive decline, historically, except right at the end. The very end of the tail, from 2010 to 2011, shows a very slight uptick. We’ve mentioned this elsewhere. Before we get too excited, that represents 1% growth, adding 147,000+ jobs to 12,036,102 of the existent manufacturing sector jobs in 2010. We’re not complaining. It might not be overcoming more than a decade of consistent decline, but it’s a start.

We thought it would be really interesting to look at this data by state. Here’s a list of growth in the manufacturing sector by each of the 50 states (as well as D.C.) from 2010 to 2011:

State2010 Jobs2011 Jobs1 Year Growth% Growth2011 EPW2010 LQMichigan (MI)493,975516,42022,4455%$77,0311.4Wisconsin (WI)441,989455,88613,8973%$64,2131.85California (CA)1,318,3391,330,54712,2081%$91,4140.95Texas (TX)861,160871,53310,3731%$79,4600.87Pennsylvania (PA)582,755593,02110,2662%$69,2161.18Illinois (IL)576,158585,0028,8442%$75,6611.15Ohio (OH)642,086650,0707,9841%$68,6221.44Oklahoma (OK)129,489137,2577,7686%$60,2460.87Indiana (IN)458,750466,3747,6242%$70,8311.87Missouri (MO)253,176259,0205,8442%$62,3981.04Georgia (GA)358,073363,3485,2751%$64,0030.99South Carolina (SC)213,811218,7424,9312%$64,1911.26North Carolina (NC)447,190451,9094,7191%$65,6171.25Minnesota (MN)304,342308,7534,4111%$71,2581.28Oregon (OR)175,009179,2014,1922%$71,3321.15Washington (WA)270,320274,4874,1672%$81,1441.02Kentucky (KY)214,960219,0244,0642%$64,2161.33Utah (UT)117,261121,1943,9333%$62,7591.04Iowa (IA)205,821208,6852,8641%$63,4451.52Louisiana (LA)143,884146,3032,4192%$79,3440.82Nebraska (NE)94,24396,3752,1322%$54,8811.12Virginia (VA)238,671240,5301,8591%$64,7150.72Arizona (AZ)158,762160,5031,7411%$79,2490.72Idaho (ID)57,58958,9191,3302%$61,1130.95Alabama (AL)243,341244,6561,3151%$62,6401.41New Hampshire (NH)69,76470,9001,1362%$76,3661.21North Dakota (ND)23,71324,7641,0514%$56,2480.68Maine (ME)54,85955,9001,0412%$60,0460.99Connecticut (CT)172,506173,5471,0411%$93,3761.14Colorado (CO)137,316138,3291,0131%$73,6510.63South Dakota (SD)38,56239,4538912%$52,4091.01Kansas (KS)165,069165,8667970%$64,6321.32Vermont (VT)33,44234,1667242%$65,2291.15Rhode Island (RI)41,96942,5455761%$64,8141.03West Virginia (WV)51,21651,6354191%$64,9110.81Massachusetts (MA)264,721264,8871660%$94,3580.92Wyoming (WY)10,35010,4591091%$64,5770.38Hawaii (HI)16,08816,185971%$48,2390.28Tennessee (TN)309,846309,934880%$67,7741.26Delaware (DE)27,10827,148400%$72,7700.74Alaska (AK)14,66014,686260%$47,9740.47District of Columbia (DC)1,6521,670181%$80,9420.03Montana (MT)19,53419,320-2140%$54,5250.45New Mexico (NM)34,23033,806-4240%$60,4810.46Florida (FL)331,924330,401-1,5230%$65,3710.49Arkansas (AR)164,142162,547-1,5950%$51,6231.53Nevada (NV)41,51839,753-1,7650%$64,2900.4Maryland (MD)121,824119,962-1,8620%$79,8800.52Mississippi (MS)139,745137,837-1,9080%$53,4241.35New Jersey (NJ)268,005264,004-4,0010%$95,6170.78New York (NY)481,182476,092-5,0900%$75,6280.63Source: EMSI Complete Employment - 2011.3

Overall, 42 states (including D.C.) show at least some growth in the manufacturing sector, with nine states declining. That’s pretty impressive, especially given that from 2009 to 2010 we saw two states with any growth, and 49 states (including D.C.) declining.

This is what the country looked like from 2009 to 2010, manufacturing-wise:

And this is how manufacturing across the country looks so far from 2010 to 2011:

Now, we have to mention that when we’re looking at the year 2011 in our current dataset, we aren’t looking at confirmed and finalized Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) data. This is different than what we see when we look at the year 2010, since we have all four quarters of QCEW data. When we look at 2011 data we’re using estimate-based data for January through May 2011 from Current Employment Statistics (CES), also a Bureau of Labor Statistics dataset. So, the 2011 data is much more of an estimate than our confirmed historical data.

But don’t get too excited. New data from a trade group called the Institute for Supply Management indicates that manufacturing activity fell from June to July. According to its data, manufacturing has grown for 23 straight months, with July showing the smallest growth since the end of the recession. This means that as new data comes in, we might want to brace ourselves to see manufacturing numbers tempered by at least a bad July.