[ATLANTA] A renaissance in US manufacturing promised by US President Donald Trump seems, at least for now, to be moving in reverse.
Manufacturing payrolls fell for the fourth straight month in August, slipping by 12,000 from a month earlier, Bureau of Labor Statistics data released on Friday (Sep 5) showed. That’s the longest stretch of declines since 2020. Over the past year, employment in the sector is down by nearly 80,000.
The malaise at US factories echoes a broader jobs market slowdown that economists have largely described as a low hiring, low firing environment. Still, cracks are beginning to form. US employers more broadly added just 22,000 jobs last month, and the unemployment rate climbed to the highest level since 2021.
The weak manufacturing numbers are proving awkward for a White House that has pledged an industrial boom. In his inaugural address, Trump vowed that under his economic agenda, “America will be a manufacturing nation once again”.
As the president readied his sweeping tariff plans, he pleaded with Americans for patience, saying it might require some short-term pain, but the benefits would be worth it.
So far, the import levies and broader uncertainty have weighed heavy on American factories. Data from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) this week showed manufacturing activity has been contracting since March. Many industry executives say much of the blame lies with Trump’s trade policies.
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The White House argues Trump’s approach is working, pointing to hundreds of billions of US dollars in pledges from companies including Apple, AbbVie and Ford Motor to expand production in the US. Each operates in key sectors subject to the president’s tariffs.
“They got to get the factory built before they can create the spot to put the worker. And so that there’s a little bit of a lull, a little bit of a pause in employment as those factories get online,” top Trump economic adviser Kevin Hassett said on Friday on Fox News. “But we are definitely seeing so much capital investment that the jobs will surely come.”
For now, though, the corporate pledges are not leading to better jobs numbers.
“We continue to have weak demand overall, still due to tariff uncertainty,” Susan Spence, chair of the ISM’s Manufacturing Business Survey Committee, said on a call with reporters earlier this week. “Sixty-nine per cent of manufacturing GDP is in contraction.” BLOOMBERG
