Table of Contents

Data originally compiled December 2025 and most recently updated May 2026 using the latest available federal and industry sources. Most series are current through April 2026. Productivity data reflect preliminary Q1 2026 estimates and revised Q4 2025 estimates released May 7, 2026. Employment data have been updated to reflect the April 2026 Employment Situation release (BLS, May 8, 2026), which includes revised February and March 2026 figures.

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Executive Summary

~12.6 million
U.S. manufacturing workers (NAICS 31–33, April 2026)

~4.1%
Average share of roles unfilled per manufacturer (NAM, Q1 2026)

~33%
Share of total compensation attributable to benefits

As of spring 2026, the U.S. manufacturing workforce remains under structural strain rather than short-term disruption. Headline employment levels have remained range-bound near 12.6 million, but hiring pressure persists, skill requirements are rising, and long-term labor availability remains constrained.

Manufacturing employment has been choppy but range-bound in early 2026, holding near 12.6 million on a seasonally adjusted basis. Monthly changes were essentially flat in February (+1,000, revised upward from an initial -12,000), +15,000 in March, and -2,000 in April. Production and nonsupervisory roles account for roughly 70% of the workforce, underscoring the sector’s continued reliance on hands-on operational labor. Employment momentum has clearly weakened compared with the 2023–2024 expansion, but the data do not yet support a narrative of clear contraction.

Even as manufacturer sentiment has improved, labor demand continues to outpace supply. Job openings remain high relative to historical norms, and manufacturers report persistent difficulty filling roles. According to the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), the average manufacturer had 4.1% of positions unfilled in Q1 2026, with roughly one in four reporting vacancy rates above 5%.

Compensation pressures have moderated but not reversed. Average hourly earnings in manufacturing reached $36.68 per hour as of April 2026, while production and nonsupervisory workers earned $30.10 per hour. That marks the first time the production and nonsupervisory series has crossed the $30 mark. Total compensation costs continue to rise at roughly 3–4% annually, with benefits representing about one-third of total labor costs.

Manufacturing productivity has grown more volatile. After three strong quarters through Q3 2025, output per hour declined 3.2% in Q4 2025 (revised) before rebounding 3.6% in preliminary Q1 2026 estimates, with year-over-year output per hour up 1.7%. Recent gains continue to be driven in part by declining hours worked rather than expanding output.

Workforce risk is increasingly structural. Manufacturing’s workforce skews older than the national average, replacement demand is rising, and skill availability—rather than pure headcount—is now the dominant constraint. Deloitte research shows more than one-third of manufacturing executives cite workforce skills as their top talent concern as investment accelerates in automation, analytics, and smart manufacturing.

Through 2026, workforce challenges are unlikely to resolve through economic cycles alone. Manufacturers that align workforce planning with compensation strategy, skills development, safety, and flexibility will be best positioned to sustain productivity amid ongoing uncertainty.

Related: Learn how Amtec’s manufacturing recruitment services can help you navigate these structural labor shortages.

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Key Manufacturing Workforce Benchmarks at a Glance (2025–2026)

Workforce size
Total manufacturing employment: ~12.6 million (April 2026, seasonally adjusted)

Workforce composition
Production & nonsupervisory share: ~70%

Labor availability
Unemployment rate (people previously employed in manufacturing): ~3.3% (April 2026, CPS, not seasonally adjusted)

Vacancy pressure
Average roles unfilled (company level): ~4.1% (NAM Q1 2026)
Manufacturers with ≥5% unfilled roles: ~26%

Hiring dynamics
Manufacturing job openings: ~440k–510k (Jan-Mar 2026, JOLTS)

Pay benchmarks
Average hourly earnings (all employees): $36.68/hour (April 2026, CES)
Average hourly earnings (production & nonsupervisory): $30.10/hour (April 2026)

Total compensation
Compensation per hour worked: ~$46/hour (ECEC, Q2 2025)
Benefits share of compensation: ~33%

Workforce stability
Union membership rate: 7.7% (2025)

Safety
Total recordable injury rate: 2.7 cases per 100 workers (2024)

Productivity
Output per hour growth: -3.2% quarter-over-quarter Q4 2025 (revised); +3.6% quarter-over-quarter Q1 2026 preliminary; +1.7% year-over-year

Future outlook
Executives citing skills as top workforce concern: >33%

Related: The Complete List of Manufacturing Conferences in 2026

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1. Overview of the U.S. Manufacturing Workforce

~70%
Production and nonsupervisory share of the manufacturing workforce

Manufacturing employment has been choppy but range-bound in early 2026, holding near 12.6 million on a seasonally adjusted basis. Monthly changes were essentially flat in February (+1,000, revised upward from an initial -12,000), +15,000 in March, and -2,000 in April. The manufacturing workweek moved in the opposite direction, rising from 40.1 hours in February to 40.4 hours in April, with average overtime steady at 3.0 hours. Performance across subsectors remains uneven, but the data do not yet support a narrative of clear contraction.

Production and nonsupervisory employees make up the majority of the workforce, reflecting manufacturing’s ongoing dependence on hands-on operational roles that are difficult to automate or offshore quickly.

The broader labor market context has continued to soften. Total nonfarm payroll employment added 115,000 jobs in April 2026 after a -156,000 February and a +185,000 March, and the national unemployment rate held at 4.3%. Unemployment among workers previously employed in manufacturing was 3.3% in April 2026, remaining low by historical standards. The overall labor market is showing signs of cooling, which may begin to ease some of the hiring pressure manufacturers have experienced in recent years.

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2. Hiring Pressure and Labor Availability

1 in 4 manufacturers
Report vacancy rates of 5% or higher

Despite moderated hiring plans, labor demand remains elevated. Manufacturing job openings ranged from roughly 440k to 510k through the first quarter of 2026, up from the 394k to 426k range seen in late 2025 and meaningfully higher than the year-earlier period. Hires and separations remained near parity, which explains why employment levels appear steady even as recruiting activity remains intense.

NAM survey data provides company-level insight: in Q1 2026, manufacturers reported an average of 4.1% of roles unfilled, with roughly one in four facing vacancy rates above 5%. These gaps are broadly distributed across subsectors rather than isolated to a few hot spots, and the figure has held remarkably steady since Q3 2025, suggesting persistent structural friction rather than a cyclical hiring squeeze.

Early 2026 establishment data show hiring activity in manufacturing remains mixed. The BLS diffusion index for manufacturing, which measures the breadth of employment gains across subsectors, registered 48.6 in February 2026, rose above the expansion threshold to 51.4 in March, then pulled back to 47.2 in April. A reading below 50 indicates more manufacturing subsectors are contracting employment than expanding it. The pattern is consistent with the choppy monthly payroll changes described in Section 1: brief expansions are not yet broad-based across the sector, and tariff uncertainty, shifting demand, and cautious outlook conditions continue to weigh on hiring breadth even where structural shortages persist.

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3. Manufacturing Workforce Pay Benchmarks

$30.10/hour
Average hourly earnings for production & nonsupervisory workers (April 2026)

Compensation remains a central workforce challenge. As of April 2026, production and nonsupervisory manufacturing workers earned $30.10 per hour, the first time this series has crossed the $30 threshold. Average hourly earnings across all manufacturing employees reached $36.68 per hour.

Wage pressure is increasingly driven by role-specific skill scarcity rather than uniform labor shortages. Occupations such as machinists, inspectors, technicians, and skilled assemblers continue to command premiums due to their direct impact on quality, throughput, and compliance.

Job titles themselves can also obscure the real comp picture. Recruiters working active searches report that some employers use lower-tier titles to justify below-market salaries for what is effectively a more senior role.

“Sometimes a client posts a Manufacturing Manager role but really wants a Plant Manager or Operations Manager. The lower title is there to justify a lower salary. The candidates who can actually do the senior job have other options.”

— Karl Borman, Sr. Executive Staffing Manager, Amtec

For role-by-role wage benchmarks across machinists, welders, CNC programmers, engineers, and production managers, plus metro-level breakdowns for Southern California, see the State of U.S. Manufacturing Wages (2026 Benchmark Report).

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4. Total Compensation and Benefits

$46.30/hour
Total compensation per hour worked in manufacturing (Q2 2025, ECEC)

Wages alone no longer reflect the true cost of labor. Total employer compensation in manufacturing averaged $46.30 per hour worked in Q2 2025, according to BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation (ECEC), with benefits accounting for about one-third of that total.

Health insurance, retirement contributions, and paid leave remain widespread, reinforcing the need for holistic compensation planning. Increasingly, manufacturers must balance wages, benefits, flexibility, and career development to remain competitive.

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5. Workforce Stability, Tenure, and Union Representation

Union membership in manufacturing stood at 7.7% in 2025, representing a minority of the workforce. While union representation remains stable, workforce satisfaction and retention outcomes are increasingly shaped by local labor markets, work conditions, benefits, scheduling, and advancement pathways rather than representation alone.

Tenure expectations also shape stability outcomes. Despite widely cited claims that employers have adapted to shorter average tenure, frontline recruiters report that hiring managers continue to weight longevity heavily.

“You hear constantly that companies have accepted shorter tenure as normal, that two years in a role is just how it is now. From the candidate side, maybe. But ninety percent or more of my white-collar direct-hire clients still have longevity in their top five requirements. I see candidates declined regularly for even one or two short stints. The cost of onboarding hasn’t gotten cheaper, and experienced hiring managers know what it costs when people only stay a year or two.”

— Karl Borman, Sr. Executive Staffing Manager, Amtec

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6. Safety, Injuries, and Workforce Risk

2.7
Recordable injury cases per 100 full-time workers (2024)

Manufacturing continues to face elevated safety risk relative to many other industries. The most recent finalized data show a total recordable injury rate of 2.7 cases per 100 workers in 2024, down slightly from 2.8 in 2023 and still above the private-industry average of 2.3.

Staffing gaps can compound safety risks by increasing overtime, fatigue, and operational strain. As noted in Section 7, recent productivity gains have been driven in part by declining hours worked rather than rising output, meaning manufacturers are running leaner. While that supports efficiency metrics, it can also concentrate workload on fewer workers, raising the stakes for workforce planning as both a human and operational resilience issue.

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7. Productivity, Output, and Labor Costs

+1.7%
Year-over-year growth in output per hour (Q1 2026 preliminary)

Productivity trends provide critical context for workforce investment decisions, and the most recent data show a more volatile picture than was apparent at the start of 2026. According to BLS Productivity and Costs releases, manufacturing labor productivity grew strongly through Q3 2025 but then reversed sharply in Q4 2025, declining 3.2% on a revised quarter-over-quarter basis. Preliminary Q1 2026 estimates released May 7, 2026, show productivity rebounding 3.6% quarter-over-quarter, with year-over-year output per hour up 1.7%. Durable manufacturing led the Q1 2026 rebound at 5.3% quarter-over-quarter, with nondurable manufacturing up 2.0%.

This recent volatility should be read in long-term context. Over the current business cycle (Q4 2019 forward), cumulative manufacturing productivity growth remains essentially flat, well below the long-run average of approximately 2.1% per year dating back to 1987. The prior business cycle (Q4 2007 to Q4 2019) was also nearly flat.

Importantly, recent quarterly gains continue to be driven in part by declining hours worked rather than rapid output expansion. Manufacturers are producing more per hour in part because they are running leaner, a dynamic consistent with the labor constraints documented throughout this report. Unit labor costs in manufacturing jumped 9.1% in Q4 2025 (the largest quarterly increase since Q3 2022), narrowing the margin headroom that existed earlier in 2025 for reinvestment in training, safety, and retention.

Sustaining these gains will increasingly depend on workforce skill levels and effective integration of digital tools. If lean staffing is driving productivity improvement, the sustainability of that improvement hinges on whether workers can maintain quality, throughput, and safety under constrained conditions.

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8. What Manufacturers Expect Next

~43%
Manufacturers planning to increase hiring (Q1 2026 NAM)

NAM outlook surveys show manufacturer sentiment is improving. In Q1 2026, 75.3% of respondents reported a positive outlook for their company, the first time the index has been above its historical average of 74.3% since Q1 2023. Roughly 43% expect to increase hiring over the next 12 months, up from 37% in late 2025, while 42% anticipate stable employment levels. Workforce challenges rank among the top business concerns, alongside trade uncertainty, rising healthcare costs, and input costs.

Recent BLS data tell a more cautious near-term story. The sector posted a small February gain (revised from an initial -12,000 to +1,000), a +15,000 March, and a -2,000 April, while the broader economy showed sharper monthly swings during this stretch. The manufacturing diffusion index registered 48.6 in February, rose to 51.4 in March, and pulled back to 47.2 in April, and average weekly hours rose modestly to 40.4. The gap between rising NAM sentiment and softer payroll data reflects forward-looking optimism that has yet to translate into broad-based hiring. For manufacturing, the picture is one of stalled momentum rather than accelerating contraction.

The prevailing mindset has shifted from aggressive expansion to careful optimization, doing more with constrained labor resources.

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9. Future Workforce Outlook (2026 and Beyond)

Manufacturing workforce challenges are structural rather than cyclical. Even if hiring slows temporarily, labor availability, skills alignment, and demographic pressures will continue to shape workforce decisions.

Foreign-born workers represent a meaningful share of manufacturing employment—particularly in durable and nondurable goods—highlighting how immigration policy and labor force participation trends materially affect labor supply.

Deloitte research underscores a shift toward skills-based scarcity. More than one-third of manufacturing executives cite workforce skills as their top concern as investment accelerates in automation, AI, and digital operations.

Technology is augmenting, not replacing, the workforce. The majority of manufacturing task hours are expected to remain human-driven, making workforce planning less about reduction and more about reconfiguring roles.

Deloitte recommends an adaptive build, buy, or borrow workforce strategy:

• Build critical skills internally
• Buy specialized expertise when needed
• Borrow flexible labor to manage volatility

These pressures are especially acute in capital-intensive subsectors like semiconductor manufacturing, where pipeline constraints for engineers and equipment technicians are projected to leave tens of thousands of roles unfilled by 2030. For a deeper look, see Amtec’s Semiconductor Workforce Report.

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What This Means for Manufacturing Leaders

• Plan for total compensation, not wage pressure alone
• Treat vacancies as a throughput and risk constraint, not just an HR metric
• Target overtime and fatigue hotspots to reduce safety and turnover risk
• Prioritize cross-training and skill adjacency as automation reshapes roles
• Use workforce flexibility as a competitive advantage, not a stopgap

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Key Takeaways for Manufacturing Leaders

• Manufacturing workforce challenges are structural, not temporary
• Skills shortages now outweigh pure headcount shortages
• Total labor costs continue rising even as wage growth moderates
• Demographics and policy materially affect labor supply
• Technology is reshaping work, not eliminating workers
• Flexible workforce strategies are becoming a competitive advantage
• Productivity has grown more volatile quarter to quarter, even as the longer-term picture remains soft

Related: The State of the U.S. Aerospace & Defense Workforce (2026 Benchmark Report)

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Methodology & Sources

This report consolidates publicly available government data and industry research to provide a comprehensive view of the U.S. manufacturing workforce.

The report was originally compiled in December 2025 and most recently updated in May 2026 using the latest available data. Federal labor market series are current through April 2026. April 2026 figures are preliminary and subject to BLS revision; February and March 2026 figures reflect revisions published with the April release.

Scope

• Industry: NAICS 31–33 (Manufacturing)
• Geography: United States
• Workforce: All employees, with emphasis on production and nonsupervisory roles

Practitioner Commentary

Qualitative input was collected from Karl Borman, Sr. Executive Staffing Manager at Amtec, on April 28, 2026. His comments appear as inset quotes in Sections 3 and 5, supplementing the federal and industry data with on-the-ground recruiting perspective.

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Primary Sources

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)

Official U.S. government labor market data used for employment, wages, benefits, safety, and productivity metrics throughout this report. All BLS data referenced are publicly available federal datasets accessible through the manufacturing sector overview page and linked series.

Manufacturing sector overview (NAICS 31-33): https://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iag31-33.htm

BLS programs and datasets referenced:

Current Employment Statistics (CES): employment levels and average hourly earnings

Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS): job openings, hires, and separations

Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS): occupation-level wage context

Current Population Survey (CPS): unemployment rates for workers previously employed in manufacturing

National Compensation Survey (NCS): benefit incidence and access

Employer Costs for Employee Compensation (ECEC): total compensation and benefit cost shares

Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses (SOII / IIF): nonfatal injury rates

Productivity and Costs Program: output per hour and unit labor costs

Additional BLS publications referenced:

The Employment Situation, April 2026. Released May 8, 2026. Used to update manufacturing employment figures for February 2026 (revised), March 2026 (revised), and April 2026 (preliminary), as well as the manufacturing diffusion index, average weekly hours, average hourly earnings, and broader labor market context. Referenced in the Executive Summary, Sections 1, 2, 3, and 8. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.htm

Productivity and Costs, First Quarter 2026, Preliminary. Released May 7, 2026. Used to update Section 7 with preliminary Q1 2026 manufacturing productivity figures and revised Q4 2025 estimates. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/prod2.htm

Job Openings and Labor Turnover, March 2026. Released May 5, 2026. Used to update manufacturing job openings figures for Q1 2026.

Union Members, 2025. Released February 18, 2026. Used to update manufacturing union membership rate.

Employer-Reported Workplace Injuries and Illnesses, 2023-2024. Released January 22, 2026. Used to update the manufacturing recordable injury rate for 2024.

Jill Janocha Redmond, “Is manufacturing productivity recovering? Evidence from the past and present,” Monthly Labor Review, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, March 2026. Used for long-term business cycle context in Section 7. https://doi.org/10.21916/mlr.2026.6

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National Association of Manufacturers (NAM)

Industry sentiment, hiring expectations, and workforce constraints reported directly by U.S. manufacturers.

The following quarterly surveys were used:

• 2025 First Quarter Manufacturers’ Outlook Survey
  https://nam.org/2025-first-quarter-manufacturers-outlook-survey/
• 2025 Second Quarter Manufacturers’ Outlook Survey
  https://nam.org/2025-second-quarter-manufacturers-outlook-survey/
• 2025 Third Quarter Manufacturers’ Outlook Survey
  https://nam.org/2025-third-quarter-manufacturers-outlook-survey/
• 2025 Fourth Quarter Manufacturers’ Outlook Survey
  https://nam.org/2025-fourth-quarter-manufacturers-outlook-survey/
• 2026 First Quarter Manufacturers’ Outlook Survey
  https://nam.org/2026-first-quarter-manufacturers-outlook-survey/

These surveys were used to inform:

• Average unfilled-role percentages
• Hiring expectations and outlook trends
• Employer-reported workforce constraints

Where a specific figure is cited (e.g., 4.1% unfilled roles, 43% planning to increase hiring), it reflects the Q1 2026 NAM survey, which provided the most recent complete data at the time of compilation.

Injury and fatality statistics reflect the most recent finalized SOII and CFOI releases available at the time of compilation.

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Deloitte Research Center for Energy & Industrials

Forward-looking workforce, technology, and skills insights used to contextualize long-term manufacturing labor trends.

• 2026 Manufacturing Industry Outlook — Deloitte
  https://www.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/industry/manufacturing-industrial-products/manufacturing-industry-outlook.html

This source was used to frame the Future Workforce Outlook section, particularly in areas related to:

• Skills-based labor shortages
• The impact of automation, AI, and smart manufacturing
• Strategic workforce planning frameworks, including the Build, Buy, or Borrow model