Manufacturing Jobs Essentially Tread Water in June

By Matthew McMullan
Jul 08 2016
A worker mans the control booth at steelmaker ArcelorMittal’s Burns Harbor, Indiana plant. | Images courtesy of ArcelorMittal.

Latest jobs report doesn’t reveal much growth in factory work.

There wasn’t a lot of good news in the unemployment report today: After all was said and done, manufacturing only gained 14,000 jobs in June. But there was a revision to the May total – the country lost 16,000 such positions that month. So that’s, what, 2,000 fewer manufacturing jobs in the United States since April?

Yeah, not good. The Wall Street Journal noted that this slow loss of factory work is part of a trend: The sector is down 42,000 jobs since the beginning of the year, and 29,000 since last year. So, in effect, manufacturing employment has gone nowhere since last year.

There is a ton Washington could do improve the lot of manufacturing workers – and create more manufacturing jobs. Said Alliance for American Manufacturing President Scott Paul, commenting on today’s data:

A domestic infrastructure rebuilding program, for instance, would boost the sector’s health. Manufacturers would also benefit from continued trade enforcement against subsidized imports, and action to deter and penalize currency manipulation.

I think we can safely begin looking to the next administration to really lay out for manufacturing jobs. Trade policy, as you may have heard, is a big deal in this election cycle. And presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has been pretty detailed in the kinds of pro-manufacturing policies that her administration would enact.

That said: Voters should lean on both political parties to make sure they include a ton of those policies in their official 2016 platforms.