The manufacturing sector grew by 25,000 jobs in December, according to the latest employment data from the Labor Department. Manufacturing ended the year on a high note with a total of 196,000 new jobs created in 2017.
Said Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) President Scott Paul:
"We're very pleased to see good manufacturing job growth in December to close out 2017, making it the third best year for new factory jobs since the Great Recession.
"It's worth noting that factory jobs are growing at a faster rate than jobs in the overall economy. Automation and robotics clearly have less of a dampening effect on manufacturing jobs than many have predicted.
“The key question is how to keep this factory job momentum in 2018. It starts with the administration acting decisively on long-deferred promises to crack down on unfairly traded imports from China and other countries, and continues with a much-needed boost in infrastructure spending.”
AAM recently explored automation's effect on jobs. To learn more, watch the video on AAM's YouTube channel.