According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' monthly employment report, 28,000 new manufacturing jobs were added in the U.S. in February—more than double the January number. Over the past 3 months, manufacturing has added 57,000 jobs. The rate of increase in February marked the fastest pace of manufacturing job creation since late 2014.
Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 235,000 in February, while the unemployment rate was little changed at 4.7 percent, according to the report. This is the first time since mid-2016 that employers have created more than 200,000 jobs in consecutive months. Employment gains occurred in construction, private educational services, health care and mining, as well as in manufacturing.
On Twitter and other social media, supporters of Donald Trump were quick to credit the growth to employers responding positively to his campaign promises and subsequent swearing in as president. Others pushed back, saying it was too soon to expect Trump’s favored manufacturing policies—many of which have not yet taken affect—to push up the employment numbers.
US News and World Report, for example, quotes Josh Wright, chief economist at software company iCIMS as saying, "I think it's a little early for us to see signs of the expectations from the Trump administration, because a lot of the policies that would be expected to affect goods producing really haven't been put into effect yet."
Author
Michael Anderson, former senior editor at Cutting Tool Engineering magazine, holds a master's degree in written communication from Eastern Michigan University. He has been professionally writing about manufacturing technology since 1998, including more than 10 years at the Society of Manufacturing Engineers.
