U.S. Manufacturing Jobs Since 1939: The Long Decline and the 2026 Rebound

Few economic numbers carry as much emotional weight as manufacturing jobs. They show up in campaign speeches, in plant-opening press releases, and in conversations about whether "Made in USA" still means anything. Here is what the official data actually shows, from 1939 to September 2026, charted directly from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) series published on FRED.

How many Americans work in manufacturing today?

In September 2026, U.S. manufacturers employed 12,652,000 people (seasonally adjusted, preliminary). That's about 7.96% of all nonfarm payroll jobs in the country. These numbers come from the BLS Current Employment Statistics survey, a monthly survey of employer payrolls, and are published as the FRED series MANEMP.

For context, that's roughly the same number of factory jobs the U.S. had in the early 1940s. The country's total workforce is several times larger now, so the share is far smaller.

How have manufacturing jobs changed since 1939?

Source: BLS via FRED (MANEMP), annual averages computed by Best of USA Store

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Year	Jobs (thousands)
1939	9,450
1940	10,102
1941	12,127
1942	14,040
1943	16,163
1944	15,910
1945	14,254
1946	13,504
1947	14,277
1948	14,316
1949	13,279
1950	14,014
1951	15,070
1952	15,290
1953	16,129
1954	14,999
1955	15,521
1956	15,856
1957	15,797
1958	14,656
1959	15,326
1960	15,437
1961	15,010
1962	15,497
1963	15,632
1964	15,889
1965	16,618
1966	17,681
1967	17,897
1968	18,211
1969	18,572
1970	17,847
1971	17,171
1972	17,664
1973	18,584
1974	18,512
1975	16,913
1976	17,538
1977	18,174
1978	18,936
1979	19,428
1980	18,732
1981	18,634
1982	17,364
1983	17,049
1984	17,921
1985	17,818
1986	17,552
1987	17,608
1988	17,905
1989	17,984
1990	17,695
1991	17,068
1992	16,800
1993	16,776
1994	17,024
1995	17,244
1996	17,237
1997	17,418
1998	17,560
1999	17,323
2000	17,265
2001	16,441
2002	15,257
2003	14,508
2004	14,315
2005	14,224
2006	14,152
2007	13,871
2008	13,395
2009	11,836
2010	11,514
2011	11,710
2012	11,908
2013	11,997
2014	12,160
2015	12,308
2016	12,324
2017	12,406
2018	12,653
2019	12,779
2020	12,125
2021	12,312
2022	12,768
2023	12,873
2024	12,789
2025	12,632

The long-run picture has four distinct phases:

1. War-time surge (1939–1943). Annual-average employment jumped from 9.45 million in 1939 to 16.2 million in 1943 as factories converted to war production.
2. Postwar plateau and growth (1946–1979). Employment rose unevenly through the 1950s and 1960s. It reached its all-time monthly high of 19,553,000 in June 1979, and the 1979 annual average was about 19.4 million.
3. A long, flat stretch (1980–2000). Recessions in the early 1980s and early 1990s cut jobs, but employment kept recovering to the 17–18 million range. The year 2000 averaged 17.27 million.
4. The 2000s collapse (2000–2010). Over a decade that included two recessions and fast-rising import competition, manufacturing lost about 5.8 million jobs on an annual-average basis, falling to 11.51 million in 2010. Monthly employment was 13,739,000 in December 2007, as the Great Recession began, and 11,439,000 in February 2010.

After 2010, the industry slowly added jobs back, reaching about 12.8 million in 2019. The pandemic pushed monthly employment to 11,382,000 in April 2020, its lowest point in the modern series. It recovered to 12,903,000 in January 2023, the highest level since the 2008–09 recession, before easing again through 2025.

Why did manufacturing's share of jobs shrink so much?

Source: BLS via FRED (MANEMP) · BLS via FRED (PAYEMS)

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Year	Share of nonfarm jobs
1939	30.8%
1940	31.2%
1941	33.1%
1942	34.9%
1943	37.9%
1944	37.9%
1945	35.2%
1946	32.4%
1947	32.5%
1948	31.9%
1949	30.3%
1950	30.9%
1951	31.4%
1952	31.3%
1953	32.1%
1954	30.6%
1955	30.6%
1956	30.2%
1957	29.8%
1958	28.5%
1959	28.7%
1960	28.4%
1961	27.7%
1962	27.8%
1963	27.5%
1964	27.2%
1965	27.3%
1966	27.6%
1967	27.1%
1968	26.8%
1969	26.3%
1970	25.1%
1971	24.1%
1972	23.9%
1973	24.2%
1974	23.6%
1975	21.9%
1976	22.1%
1977	22%
1978	21.8%
1979	21.6%
1980	20.7%
1981	20.4%
1982	19.4%
1983	18.9%
1984	19%
1985	18.3%
1986	17.6%
1987	17.2%
1988	17%
1989	16.6%
1990	16.2%
1991	15.7%
1992	15.4%
1993	15.1%
1994	14.9%
1995	14.7%
1996	14.4%
1997	14.2%
1998	13.9%
1999	13.4%
2000	13.1%
2001	12.4%
2002	11.7%
2003	11.1%
2004	10.9%
2005	10.6%
2006	10.4%
2007	10.1%
2008	9.8%
2009	9%
2010	8.8%
2011	8.9%
2012	8.9%
2013	8.8%
2014	8.8%
2015	8.7%
2016	8.5%
2017	8.5%
2018	8.5%
2019	8.5%
2020	8.5%
2021	8.4%
2022	8.4%
2023	8.3%
2024	8.1%
2025	8%

The share chart tells a different story from the job count. Manufacturing's share of nonfarm jobs peaked at 37.9% in 1943. It was still 30.9% in 1950 and 25.1% in 1970, then fell below 20% in the early 1980s, to 13.1% in 2000, and to 8.0% in 2025.

Much of that decline came from other sectors growing faster rather than from factories shrinking. Manufacturing employment in 1979 was about twice its 1939 level, yet its share was falling the whole time because health care, retail, business services and government grew much more. Only after 2000 did the absolute number of factory jobs fall sharply as well.

Are manufacturing jobs coming back in 2026?

Figures for the most recent months are preliminary and are revised in later BLS releases.

Source: BLS via FRED (MANEMP) · BLS Employment Situation, Oct 2, 2026

View the data

Month	Jobs (thousands)
Sep '24	12,758
Oct '24	12,697
Nov '24	12,711
Dec '24	12,693
Jan '25	12,673
Feb '25	12,671
Mar '25	12,666
Apr '25	12,662
May '25	12,651
Jun '25	12,636
Jul '25	12,625
Aug '25	12,615
Sep '25	12,612
Oct '25	12,603
Nov '25	12,593
Dec '25	12,580
Jan '26	12,582
Feb '26	12,583
Mar '26	12,598
Apr '26	12,597
May '26	12,595
Jun '26	12,608
Jul '26	12,628
Aug '26	12,643
Sep '26	12,652

After drifting down for most of 2025, factory employment turned up in 2026. It bottomed at 12,580,000 in December 2025 and rose to 12,652,000 by September 2026, a gain of 72,000 jobs in nine months.

The BLS Employment Situation report for September 2026, released October 2, showed:

• manufacturing added 9,000 jobs in September;
• gains in plastics and rubber products (+5,000) and machinery (+5,000);
• the average manufacturing workweek was 40.6 hours, with 3.0 hours of overtime;
• across the whole economy, total nonfarm payrolls rose 29,000, and the unemployment rate was 4.2%.

The Federal Reserve's industrial production release (G.17, October 16, 2026) adds an output view:

• manufacturing output rose 0.3% in September, while total industrial production rose 0.7%;
• in the third quarter, durable manufacturing output grew at a 3.8% annual rate, driven in part by a 28.4% gain in output of semiconductors and related electronic components;
• manufacturing capacity utilization was 75.9%, which is 2.3 percentage points below its 1972–2025 average. Factories have room to produce more without new plants.

Seventy-two thousand jobs is small next to the losses of the 2000s. Still, after a year of steady declines, it's a real change in direction. Our weekly Made in USA news roundup tracks the plant announcements behind it.

What should we watch next?

• The November 6 jobs report. The next BLS Employment Situation release will show October payrolls and revise August and September.
• The Fed's annual revision on November 24. It will re-base industrial production to 2022 and add new Census benchmark data, which could change the output picture.
• Announced factories turning into jobs. Investment announcements take years to show up as payroll jobs, because construction comes first.

How can shoppers support manufacturing jobs?

One practical lever is where your money goes. When you buy products that are actually made in the U.S., more of the price pays for American labor, from factory workers to suppliers. Some examples from our directory are made in long-running American plants:

Lodge has cast iron in South Pittsburg, Tennessee, since 1896. Estwing forges hammers in Rockford, Illinois. Browse American-made tools and home and kitchen goods, or read what the "Made in USA" label legally requires.

About this data

All employment figures are BLS payroll counts (series MANEMP and PAYEMS), seasonally adjusted, downloaded from FRED. Annual figures are simple averages of the 12 monthly values, computed by us. The 2026 monthly figures are preliminary and will be revised. You can open the "View the data" table under each chart to see every value we plotted.