10 Interesting Facts About Manufacturing in the U.S.

Manufacturing workers account for about 9% of the workforce. There are currently 12.32 million manufacturing workers in the United States, as well as an additional 18.5 million jobs in the U.S. that are supported by the manufacturing industry. That?s about one in every six private sector jobs.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 95% of manufacturing employees were eligible for health insurance benefits in 2015. This is significantly higher than the average of health insurance eligibility for all firms, which is 79%. Manufacturing is the third highest sector for health insurance take-up rates.

In 2014, the average manufacturing worker in the United States earned $15,349 more than the average worker in all industries. The average worker in manufacturing earned $25.19 per hour when looking specifically at wages, and not including benefits.

There are expected to be nearly 3.5 million manufacturing jobs to fill over the next decade. However, nearly 2 million of these jobs are likely to go unfilled due to a gap in skills. According to a recent report, 80% of manufacturers communicate that they have a shortage of qualified applicants, particularly for highly skilled production positions.

Most manufacturing firms are incredibly small. Only about 1% of manufacturing firms have greater than 500 employees. The majority of the firms in this sector are considered small firms, with three quarters having fewer than 20 employees.

Manufacturing has the highest economic multiplier of any sector. $1.40 is added to the economy for every $1.00 spent in manufacturing. In the most recent data, manufacturers have contributed $2.17 trillion into the U.S. economy.

Manufactured goods exports have more than quadrupled over the last 25 years. In 1990, $329.5 billion in good were exported by U.S. manufacturers. By 2014, that number reached an all-time high of $1.403 trillion, even despite slowing growth globally.

In the manufacturing sector alone, the United States would be the ninth-largest economy in the world. In 2014, $2.1 trillion in value was added from manufacturing, and only eight other nations would rank higher in terms of their gross domestic product.

More than 75% of all private research and development in the nation is performed by manufacturers in the United Sates. Research and development in the manufacturing sector drives innovation more than any other sector. In 2014, $229.9 billion was spent on manufacturing research and development.

30% of the nation's energy is consumed by the manufacturing industry which equals about 31.5 quadrillion Btu of energy.