US Manufacturing Statistics 2026
By Axis Intelligence Research
Co-author: Sophie Winslow (Industrial Technology Editor) | Last updated: August 14, 2026 | License: CC BY 4.0
US factory output in June 2026 stood at 97.9 on the Federal Reserve’s 2017 base, 1.1 percent above a year earlier, while manufacturing payrolls held at 12.611 million in July. Factory construction spending has fallen 21.4 percent year over year. Output is rising, hiring has stopped falling, and the building boom that was supposed to carry both has rolled over.
Quick Answer
US manufacturing employed 12.611 million people in July 2026 and contributed 9.4 percent of GDP in the first quarter, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Factory output rose at a 4.7 percent annual rate in the second quarter. According to Axis Intelligence Research, the Axis Manufacturing Divergence Index (AMDI) reached 199.9 in June 2026 — advanced-technology plants now produce almost exactly twice as much per unit of everything else as they did in 2017.
Key Findings
- According to Axis Intelligence Research, US manufacturing payrolls have risen by 31,000 jobs between December 2025 and July 2026, the first sustained increase since the sector shed 323,000 jobs from its January 2023 peak of 12.903 million.
- Manufacturing construction spending ran at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $172.674 billion in June 2026, down 21.4 percent from $219.564 billion a year earlier, per US Census Bureau data published August 3, 2026.
- According to Axis Intelligence Research, power construction spending ($177.635 billion) exceeded manufacturing construction spending ($172.674 billion) in the June 2026 estimate, the second consecutive month of that ordering; the crossover first appeared in the May 2026 figures.
- Semiconductor and related electronic component output stood at 181.9 on the Federal Reserve’s 2017 base in June 2026, up 11.5 percent year over year, while manufacturing excluding computers, semiconductors and communications equipment stood at 95.9 — still below its 2017 level.
- Manufacturing job openings reached 481,000 in June 2026, up 90,000 from June 2025, while the sector’s layoff rate held at 0.7 percent, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
How Big Is US Manufacturing in 2026?
Manufacturing accounted for 9.4 percent of US gross domestic product in the first quarter of 2026, unchanged from the fourth quarter of 2025, based on Bureau of Economic Analysis value-added statistics released June 25, 2026. That share has moved within a 0.1 point band across the five most recent quarters, which is the first thing worth saying plainly: nothing in the tariff cycle, the CHIPS build-out or the reshoring rhetoric has moved manufacturing’s slice of the economy.
The sector’s operating scale is easier to read from three numbers that all update monthly. New orders for manufactured goods ran at $656.5 billion in June 2026. Shipments ran at $652.1 billion. Unfilled orders — the backlog manufacturers have booked but not yet delivered — stood at $1,590.6 billion, per the US Census Bureau M3 survey.
| Headline measure | Value | As of | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Manufacturing share of GDP | 9.4% | Q1 2026 | Bureau of Economic Analysis |
| Payroll employment | 12,611,000 | July 2026 | Bureau of Labor Statistics |
| New orders, all manufacturing | $656.5B | June 2026 | US Census Bureau |
| Unfilled orders | $1,590.6B | June 2026 | US Census Bureau |
| Industrial production, manufacturing | 97.9 (2017=100) | June 2026 | Federal Reserve |
| Capacity utilization, manufacturing | 75.7% | June 2026 | Federal Reserve |
| Manufacturing PMI | 55.6 | July 2026 | Institute for Supply Management |
Sophie Winslow: A 9.4 percent GDP share and a 12.6 million headcount describe the same sector from two ends, and the gap between them is the whole story of the last thirty years. The plants that survived did so by taking cycle time and headcount out at the same rate the output index went sideways. Anyone selling a reshoring narrative has to explain why the share of output has not moved in five quarters.
How Many Manufacturing Jobs Are There in the US?
There were 12,611,000 manufacturing payroll jobs in July 2026, seasonally adjusted, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation released August 7, 2026. Manufacturing employment showed little change over the month in a report where total nonfarm payrolls fell by 23,000.
The monthly path matters more than the level. Employment bottomed at 12,580,000 in December 2025 and has added jobs in four of the seven months since.
Manufacturing employment, monthly path
| Month | Payroll jobs (thousands) | Change from prior month |
|---|---|---|
| January 2023 (cycle peak) | 12,903 | — |
| December 2025 | 12,580 | -13 |
| January 2026 | 12,582 | +2 |
| February 2026 | 12,583 | +1 |
| March 2026 | 12,598 | +15 |
| April 2026 | 12,597 | -1 |
| May 2026 | 12,595 | -2 |
| June 2026 | 12,606 | +11 |
| July 2026 | 12,611 | +5 |
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, series MANEMP, retrieved August 14, 2026.
According to Axis Intelligence Research, the net gain from December 2025 through July 2026 is 31,000 jobs — small against a 12.6 million base, but it is the first stretch since the January 2023 peak in which the trend line stopped pointing down. The sector lost 323,000 jobs between that peak and the December 2025 trough.
What labor turnover data says about factory hiring
The turnover picture from the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for June 2026 is the strongest confirmation that the employment inflection is demand-driven rather than a statistical artifact.
| Measure (manufacturing) | June 2025 | June 2026 | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Job openings | 391,000 | 481,000 | Bureau of Labor Statistics |
| Job openings rate | 3.0% | 3.7% | Bureau of Labor Statistics |
| Durable goods openings | 242,000 | 345,000 | Bureau of Labor Statistics |
| Nondurable goods openings | 149,000 | 136,000 | Bureau of Labor Statistics |
| Hires | 288,000 | 329,000 | Bureau of Labor Statistics |
| Layoffs and discharges | 104,000 | 94,000 | Bureau of Labor Statistics |
| Quits | 174,000 | 192,000 | Bureau of Labor Statistics |
Durable goods plants posted a 4.2 percent job openings rate in June 2026 against 3.0 percent a year earlier. Nondurable goods moved the other way, shedding 55,000 openings in a single month. That split runs through everything below.
The Institute for Supply Management reported a manufacturing employment index of 52.8 in July 2026, up from 49.7 in June, its first reading in expansion territory in 33 months.
Is US Manufacturing Output Actually Growing?
Manufacturing output was unchanged in June 2026 but grew at a 4.7 percent annual rate across the second quarter, per the Federal Reserve G.17 release published July 17, 2026. The manufacturing index reads 97.9 against a 2017 base of 100. Nine years after that base year, US factories collectively produce about 2 percent less.
Output by industry, June 2026
| Industry (NAICS) | Index (2017=100) | Change vs June 2025 | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Communications equipment (3342) | 230.8 | +10.6% | Federal Reserve |
| Semiconductors and related components (3344) | 181.9 | +11.5% | Federal Reserve |
| Computers and peripherals (3341) | 179.8 | +9.2% | Federal Reserve |
| Computer and electronic products (334) | 136.5 | +9.2% | Federal Reserve |
| Motor vehicles and parts (3361-3) | 110.1 | +1.2% | Federal Reserve |
| Chemicals (325) | 101.6 | -1.3% | Federal Reserve |
| Primary metals (331) | 100.8 | +1.5% | Federal Reserve |
| Electrical equipment and appliances (335) | 100.1 | +5.7% | Federal Reserve |
| Food, beverage and tobacco (311-2) | 98.4 | -0.7% | Federal Reserve |
| Aerospace and other transportation (3364-9) | 96.6 | +5.0% | Federal Reserve |
| Fabricated metal products (332) | 95.4 | +2.1% | Federal Reserve |
| Plastics and rubber (326) | 95.0 | +0.7% | Federal Reserve |
| Machinery (333) | 94.2 | +2.9% | Federal Reserve |
| Paper (322) | 78.3 | -4.6% | Federal Reserve |
| Furniture and related products (337) | 73.6 | -5.0% | Federal Reserve |
| Textile and product mills (313-4) | 72.3 | -4.7% | Federal Reserve |
How much slack is left in US factories?
Capacity utilization for manufacturing was 75.7 percent in June 2026, which the Federal Reserve places 2.5 percentage points below its 1972-2025 long-run average of 78.2 percent. Manufacturing capacity itself is projected to grow 1.0 percent across 2026 on a fourth-quarter to fourth-quarter basis, after 1.1 percent in 2025.
Motor vehicles and parts ran at 69.6 percent. Primary metals ran at 67.6 percent. Machinery ran at 81.5 percent.
Sophie Winslow: Ask what baseline a utilization number is measured against before you call 75.7 percent tight or loose. The Fed’s capacity series assumes a realistic shift pattern with normal downtime, and it has been re-benchmarked against the Census Quarterly Survey of Plant Capacity. On that basis, primary metals at 67.6 percent is a sector running a third of its installed base cold, and it has been doing so long enough that the idle lines are a permanent write-down in all but the accounting.
What Is the Axis Manufacturing Divergence Index (AMDI)?
The Axis Manufacturing Divergence Index (AMDI) measures how far US factory output has split into two economies: advanced-technology plants and everything else. Compiled by Axis Intelligence Research from Federal Reserve source data, it exists because the headline manufacturing index averages away the single most important fact about the sector.
Formula
AMDI = (IP index, selected high-technology industries
/ IP index, manufacturing excluding selected high-technology industries) x 100
Inputs. Both series come from Federal Reserve G.17 Table 5, seasonally adjusted, 2017 = 100. Selected high-technology industries are computers and peripheral equipment (NAICS 3341), communications equipment (3342), and semiconductors and related electronic components (3344). The denominator is the Federal Reserve’s published manufacturing aggregate excluding those three industries.
Baseline. AMDI equals 100 in 2017 by construction, because both input indexes are set to 100 in that year. The June 2026 reading of 199.9 is the highest in the series Axis Intelligence Research has computed, which currently begins in October 2025; readings before that date have not been calculated and no claim is made about them.
AMDI readings
| Month | High-tech IP index | Manufacturing ex high-tech IP index | AMDI |
|---|---|---|---|
| October 2025 | 178.0 | 94.8 | 187.8 |
| November 2025 | 179.2 | 94.7 | 189.2 |
| December 2025 | 180.4 | 94.4 | 191.1 |
| January 2026 | 186.0 | 94.3 | 197.2 |
| February 2026 | 186.1 | 95.0 | 195.9 |
| March 2026 | 184.9 | 95.2 | 194.2 |
| April 2026 | 187.5 | 95.9 | 195.5 |
| May 2026 | 190.9 | 96.0 | 198.9 |
| June 2026 | 191.7 | 95.9 | 199.9 |
Source: Axis Intelligence Research, computed from Federal Reserve G.17 Table 5, retrieved August 14, 2026.
According to Axis Intelligence Research, AMDI rose 8.8 points between December 2025 and June 2026 — and the rise came almost entirely from the numerator. High-technology output added 11.3 index points over those six months while the rest of manufacturing added 1.5. A reading of 199.9 means the ratio of advanced-technology output to all other factory output has almost exactly doubled since 2017.
Scope note. AMDI is a relative measure. It rises when high-technology output grows faster than the rest of manufacturing, including when the rest of manufacturing is contracting, and it says nothing about employment, margins or the dollar value of either side. It is deliberately built from two published Federal Reserve series so that any competent analyst can recompute every reading from the same release.
A second Axis figure: output per manufacturing job
Axis Intelligence Research also computes a matched-scope output-per-job index, dividing the Federal Reserve’s manufacturing index for NAICS 31-33 by BLS payroll employment for the same NAICS definition, both rebased to 2017.
Output per job index = (IP index, manufacturing NAICS 31-33)
/ (MANEMP / 12,406.4 x 100) x 100
The 12,406.4 thousand denominator is the 2017 annual average of BLS series MANEMP, calculated by Axis Intelligence Research from the twelve published monthly values. The June 2026 reading is 97.14, against 95.85 in June 2025 — a 1.34 percent gain, and still 2.9 percent below the 2017 baseline. The two indexes use the same NAICS 31-33 scope specifically so that the Federal Reserve’s inclusion of logging and publishing in its broader manufacturing aggregate does not contaminate the ratio.
That is the number that reconciles the two halves of this page. Output is up, employment is flat, and output per job is still below where it was in 2017. Productivity is recovering from a hole, not compounding from a peak.
Why Is Factory Construction Spending Falling in 2026?
Manufacturing construction spending ran at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $172.674 billion in June 2026, down 21.4 percent from $219.564 billion in June 2025, per the US Census Bureau’s Value of Construction Put in Place release published August 3, 2026. Private manufacturing construction, which is nearly all of it, fell 22.0 percent to $170.309 billion.
Across the first half of 2026, manufacturing construction totaled $87.008 billion against $111.749 billion in the same period of 2025, a 22.1 percent decline on a not-seasonally-adjusted basis.
The crossover nobody has flagged
| Category | June 2025 | February 2026 | May 2026 | June 2026 | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Manufacturing construction | $219.564B | $181.879B | $174.697B | $172.674B | US Census Bureau |
| Power construction | $171.601B | $175.305B | $176.512B | $177.635B | US Census Bureau |
According to Axis Intelligence Research, power construction overtook manufacturing construction in the May 2026 estimate and led it by $4.961 billion at an annual rate in June 2026 — the first time in this capital cycle that the grid is absorbing more construction dollars than the factories. Both series carry Census revisions, and the ordering in the two most recent months could reverse in a later vintage; the gap in June was well inside the range where that is possible.
The composition of what is falling matters as much as the fall. Office construction rose 12.5 percent year over year to $132.750 billion and commercial fell 5.9 percent, while the entire nonresidential category fell only 2.1 percent. Manufacturing is not falling with the market. It is falling against it.
Sophie Winslow: A construction line item is a lagging indicator of a decision made eighteen to thirty months earlier, which is why a 21 percent decline in factory building tells you about 2024 board approvals rather than about 2026 demand. The interesting question is what the capacity index does in 2028. Manufacturing capacity is scheduled to grow 1.0 percent this year. If the construction line does not turn, that growth rate is what the sector has to work with when the current backlog of $1.59 trillion in unfilled orders comes due.
What Do Factory Orders and Backlogs Show?
New orders for manufactured goods fell 0.3 percent in June 2026 to $656.5 billion, a second consecutive monthly decline, per the US Census Bureau M3 survey. Shipments fell 0.2 percent to $652.1 billion after six consecutive monthly increases.
The backlog tells a different story from the monthly prints. Unfilled orders rose 0.6 percent to $1,590.6 billion and have increased in 23 of the last 24 months. The unfilled-orders-to-shipments ratio was 6.86, down from 6.90 in May.
According to Axis Intelligence Research, new orders in June 2026 were 7.4 percent above the revised June 2025 level of $611.5 billion, which means two months of decline sit on top of a year of growth rather than reversing it.
Forward indicators from the July 2026 ISM Manufacturing PMI point the same direction. The headline index registered 55.6, its highest since May 2022. The production index registered 58.5, the highest since November 2021. New orders registered 56.7 and backlog of orders 55.0. The prices index at 71.1 remains the pressure point.
Do Manufacturing Jobs Still Pay More Than Other Jobs?
No, and that finding survives every way of cutting the data.
Average hourly earnings in manufacturing were $36.87 in July 2026, against $37.62 across total private employment, per BLS Table B-3. According to Axis Intelligence Research, that is a manufacturing wage discount of 1.99 percent, narrowed from a 2.63 percent discount in July 2025.
| Segment | July 2025 | July 2026 | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total private | $36.47 | $37.62 | Bureau of Labor Statistics |
| Manufacturing, all | $35.51 | $36.87 | Bureau of Labor Statistics |
| Durable goods | $37.73 | $39.12 | Bureau of Labor Statistics |
| Nondurable goods | $31.77 | $33.03 | Bureau of Labor Statistics |
| Construction | $39.73 | $41.46 | Bureau of Labor Statistics |
| Utilities | $52.11 | $56.34 | Bureau of Labor Statistics |
Manufacturing hourly earnings rose 3.83 percent over the year, faster than the 3.2 percent gain across all private employment reported by BLS. Weekly earnings run higher than the hourly comparison suggests because factory hours are longer: the manufacturing workweek held at 40.4 hours in July 2026 with 3.1 hours of overtime, against 34.3 hours across private payrolls, producing average weekly earnings of $1,489.55.
Sophie Winslow: The weekly number is the honest one for a plant manager writing a job posting, and $1,489.55 against $1,290.37 across private payrolls is a real gap. But it is bought with 6.1 extra hours a week, and overtime hours are the first thing a scheduler cuts when the order book softens. A recruiting pitch built on weekly pay is a pitch built on a variable the candidate does not control.
Methodology
Collection. Every figure on this page was retrieved from a primary agency release during production on August 14, 2026. Sources are the Federal Reserve G.17 statistical release of July 17, 2026 (June 2026 data); the Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation of August 7, 2026 (July 2026 data) and its Tables B-2 and B-3; the BLS Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey of August 4, 2026 (June 2026 data); the US Census Bureau Value of Construction Put in Place release of August 3, 2026 (June 2026 data); the US Census Bureau M3 full report for June 2026; the Bureau of Economic Analysis Gross Domestic Product by Industry statistics released June 25, 2026; and the Institute for Supply Management Manufacturing PMI Report on Business for July 2026.
Reference periods differ by series and are stated per row. Employment and earnings are July 2026. Industrial production, capacity utilization, construction spending, factory orders and labor turnover are June 2026. Value added is the first quarter of 2026. PMI readings are July 2026. Comparing across them requires attention to the date column, not the publication date.
Calculations. All arithmetic was performed in Python against the fetched values. Year-over-year percentage changes reproduced from agency tables are marked as observed; changes computed by Axis Intelligence Research are marked axis_calculated with the formula in the method_note column. The AMDI and the output-per-job index are described with full formulas in the sections above.
Scope and revision handling. The Federal Reserve’s manufacturing aggregate includes logging and publishing alongside NAICS 31-33; where a Federal Reserve series is combined with BLS employment data, the NAICS 31-33 variant is used so the two scopes match. Industrial production estimates are revised in each of the five months after first publication, and the Federal Reserve has scheduled an annual revision for autumn 2026 that will rebase the indexes to 2022. Construction spending, M3 and JOLTS figures are also subject to revision, and BLS will publish a preliminary benchmark revision to establishment survey employment on August 28, 2026. Readings that could flip on revision are flagged in the text where the margin is narrow.
About This Dataset
The accompanying CSV contains 178 rows covering US manufacturing output, employment, earnings, labor turnover, capacity, construction spending, factory orders and value added, with the full AMDI and output-per-job series. Each row carries its value, unit, as-of date, period type, source organization, source document, source URL, retrieval date, a primary-source flag, an Axis-calculated flag, a data-type label and a method note where a calculation is involved.
License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). Reuse and redistribution are permitted with attribution.
Citation format: Axis Intelligence Research, US Manufacturing Statistics 2026, 2026.
How to Cite This Page
APA: Axis Intelligence Research. (2026). US manufacturing statistics 2026: Output, jobs, factory construction and the two-speed factory floor. https://axis-intelligence.com/us-manufacturing-statistics/
MLA: Axis Intelligence Research. “US Manufacturing Statistics 2026: Output, Jobs, Factory Construction and the Two-Speed Factory Floor.” Axis Intelligence, 2026, axis-intelligence.com/us-manufacturing-statistics/.
Chicago: Axis Intelligence Research. “US Manufacturing Statistics 2026: Output, Jobs, Factory Construction and the Two-Speed Factory Floor.” Axis Intelligence, 2026. https://axis-intelligence.com/us-manufacturing-statistics/.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does a capacity utilization rate of 75.7 percent mean US factories can absorb new demand without capital spending?
Partly. The Federal Reserve defines capacity as sustainable maximum output under a realistic shift pattern, so 75.7 percent implies genuine headroom in aggregate. The aggregate hides the constraint, though: machinery ran at 81.5 percent in June 2026 while primary metals ran at 67.6 percent. Idle primary metals capacity does not help a machinery builder whose own lines are near the practical ceiling, and much of the slack sits in industries where the equipment has been cold long enough that restart cost is closer to greenfield cost than to a changeover.
Why is the ISM Manufacturing PMI at 55.6 while the Federal Reserve’s output index shows manufacturing unchanged?
They measure different things over different windows. The PMI is a diffusion index of purchasing managers reporting direction of change in July, where any expansion counts equally regardless of size. The Federal Reserve index measures the magnitude of physical output in June, weighted by each industry’s value added. A month in which many small plants improve slightly and a few heavily weighted industries stall produces exactly this combination. The July 2026 PMI production index of 58.5 is a signal about breadth, not tonnage.
What does a $1.59 trillion unfilled order book tell a supplier about lead times?
The useful figure is the ratio, not the level. Unfilled orders equalled 6.86 months of shipments in June 2026, down from 6.90 in May. A backlog that grows while the ratio falls means shipments are growing faster than the queue, which is the signature of a supply chain catching up rather than one seizing. Suppliers quoting into that condition should expect customers to push for shorter lead times rather than accept the posted ones.
Is the drop in factory construction spending a reshoring failure or a normal capital cycle?
The data supports the cycle reading more than the failure reading. Construction put in place records money spent on projects already approved, so the 21.4 percent year-over-year decline reflects the tail of the 2023-2024 approval wave running out rather than a change in 2026 demand. What would distinguish the two is capacity growth: manufacturing capacity is projected to rise 1.0 percent in 2026 against 1.1 percent in 2025. If that rate falls below roughly 0.5 percent in the 2027 projections, the construction decline has become a capacity problem.
Which manufacturing industries are hiring in 2026, and which are not?
Durable goods. Durable goods job openings rose to 345,000 in June 2026 from 242,000 a year earlier, taking the openings rate to 4.2 percent. Nondurable goods openings fell to 136,000 from 149,000, a 55,000 drop in June alone. That split matches the output data, where durable manufacturing output rose 3.2 percent year over year and nondurable fell 1.1 percent.
How does AMDI differ from simply reading the semiconductor output index?
The semiconductor index tells you one industry is growing. AMDI tells you what is happening to the ratio between advanced-technology output and every other factory in the country, which is the number that matters for anyone allocating capital, siting a plant or writing industrial policy. The index rose from 191.1 in December 2025 to 199.9 in June 2026 because high-technology output gained 11.3 points while the rest of manufacturing gained 1.5. Reading the semiconductor line alone would have shown growth and missed the divergence.
Do the manufacturing employment numbers include contract and temporary workers on the plant floor?
No. The BLS establishment survey counts workers by employer of record, so a machine operator supplied by a staffing agency is counted in professional and business services, not manufacturing. The same convention applies to JOLTS. Plants that have shifted headcount to staffing agencies show up as manufacturing employment declines even when the number of people on the floor has not changed, which is one reason the payroll series and plant-level headcount can diverge.
What upcoming data release could change the figures on this page most?
The BLS preliminary benchmark revision on August 28, 2026, which reconciles establishment survey employment against unemployment insurance tax records for March 2026. That revision has moved manufacturing employment by tens of thousands of jobs in past years and would directly change the December-to-July recovery figure. The Federal Reserve’s annual industrial production revision in autumn 2026 rebases the indexes to 2022 and will change every AMDI reading, since both inputs are rebased.
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