Industry Trends & Analysis

The aging U.S. population and labor force weigh particularly heavy on one economic sector: manufacturing. While an aging population affects most sectors, its impact on manufacturing could be outsized for a couple of reasons.

If you are looking for signs of trouble in the U.S. economy, many experts and politicians point to manufacturing. The industry faces the double whammy of President Donald Trump's trade war and declining purchases from abroad as Europe, China and other regions and countries slow down.

The most significant marketing challenge of our time is the scarcity of attention from potential customers. Bombarded relentlessly from all directions with too much information, a deluge of products and services, and too many unsubstantiated claims, potential customers have tuned out, dropped out and become all but unreachable. Now resistant to communication, they can't even process 5% of what is thrown at them daily, maybe even less.

Europe's battery manufacturing capacity is on the cusp of dramatic growth, though much of the investment and know-how are coming from Asian companies.

The Brookings Institution found that while 58% of respondents see manufacturing as vital to the U.S. economy, only 17% are confident in its future.

When geopolitical decisions, whether regulatory, tax or immigration, appear to be made arbitrarily, it's going to cause pullback by business leaders. The current climate of tariffs, uncertainty and risk is a wake-up call for a slowdown.

Between 1990 and 2011, the U.S. manufacturing sector lost 1 of every 3 jobs. This scarring decline has left policymakers seeking explanations, as well as appropriate policy responses.

Local microfactories democratize innovation, making production more readily available to entrepreneurs, inventors and makers.

Two statistics seem unrelated but, taken together, say something significant about New York City's future as an engine of opportunity, innovation and equity. The first is that manufacturing lost more jobs than initially estimated and now accounts for only 69,000 jobs in the city, or 1.5% of the total. The second is that information jobs grew by 6% to about 200,000.

SyncFab, a Manufacturing Blockchain solution for parts suppliers and buyers, has announced a strategic partnership with the National Tooling and Machining Assocation. The new relationship will grant access to SyncFab's advanced manufacturing blockchain platform for over 1,300 NTMA members across the U.S.

The federal agencies funding 14 institutes created to jump-start the manufacturing industry have no set criteria to measure progress, according to a government report. The departments of Commerce, Defense and Energy need a way to gauge whether they're meeting the goals of the 2014 law that formed this nationwide network of manufacturing hubs, the Government Accountability Office announced.

The American Manufacturing Communities Collaborative, in collaboration with the Northeast-Midwest Institute and the Century Foundation, is a new national organization building on the foundation of the 24-region Investing in Manufacturing Communities Partnership initiative, helping regional communities across the U.S. devise and implement sustainable economic development plans that lead to good-paying jobs in thriving manufacturing sectors.