Manufacturing gained 8,000 jobs in December 2015, the Labor Department reported on Friday. But the sector only gained 30,000 new jobs in all of 2015 — the worst number since the Great Recession — and it continues to fall below expectations as it faces challenges such as China's massive industrial overcapacity.
With just about a year left to go in office, President Obama remains far behind in his campaign promise to create 1 million new manufacturing jobs in his second term.
The #AAMeter, which tracks Obama's goal, now sits at +384,000 jobs. That means there would need to be 51,333 new manufacturing jobs created each month for Obama to hit his goal.
Said AAM President Scott Paul:
While the rest of the economy added more than 2.5 million jobs in 2015, manufacturing hiring was virtually flat. And you can see the ripple effect of Chinese economic policy in our own factories.
Just yesterday, 200 Ohio steelworkers received layoff notices. More than 12,000 steelworkers were laid off across the country in 2015. With China's currency devaluing, and its industrial overcapacity spreading pain around the globe, we can expect more bad news for American manufacturing in the months to come.
President Obama and Congress must ensure that China doesn't export its economic problems to the United States, causing further factory job loss.