Today, 415,000 Manufacturing Jobs Are Unfilled

Sep 15, 2025

For the last 20 years, to get elected, politicians have advocated bringing manufacturing jobs to the U.S.

In 2016, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton each pledged to bring back manufacturing to win the presidency. In 2020, President Biden campaigned on adding five million manufacturing jobs. After he was elected, Biden supposedly allocated 2 trillion dollars to build a manufacturing base for such jobs. Now, Trump says he aims to achieve this goal by imposing higher tariffs on other countries. All this political chit-chat is hogwash, whether it ends up with real attempts or is just another lie.

In fact, the U.S. already ranks second, just behind China, in its share of overall global manufacturing output. That is, by most measures, America is already “a manufacturing superpower.” At the same time, this superpower needs more than 415,000 workers to fill its open manufacturing positions right now, according to the Federal Reserve. Bosses’ organizations, like the Manufacturing Institute, estimate that manufacturers will need 3.8 million additional workers by 2033. According to the manufacturers, recruiting and retaining workers is their number one business challenge.

Yet, the bosses are cheap when it comes to wages. Currently, the average hourly pay of a manufacturing worker is around 8% lower than that of a non-manufacturing worker, such as a service sector worker, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

For example, the 2024 median hourly wages in apparel manufacturing and textile manufacturing were $15.49 and $17.56, respectively, as reported by the Cato Institute. In South Carolina, a garment worker will start at just $11 an hour. Production line jobs at Samsung’s U.S. washing machine production plant in South Carolina start at just $16-$17 an hour.

Some of these jobs are demanding and hazardous. For example, as the Wall Street Journal notes, at 6 a.m. every weekday in Salem, Ohio, workers in steel-toed boots clock in to the small factory at Quaker City Castings to build sand molds, pour molten metal at 3,000 degrees, and grind iron and steel castings. To protect themselves from flames and dust, workers wear hard hats, face shields, and respirators. Yet, the company pays an average hourly wage ranging from $12.49 per hour for a Grinder up to about $23.45 per hour for a Certified Welder.

So, no wonder that manufacturing bosses find out that new hires frequently quit for less taxing, much less dangerous, or better-paid employment in other industries, where they can work as drivers, in warehouses, or in fast food chains. And they can earn similar, albeit low, wages.

Plus, it often takes one to two years to learn the skills necessary to perform such dangerous and demanding work, and more years to learn how to apply those skills in the specific workplace. For example, tasks at Quaker City Castings, such as preparing a wood pattern for a mold that meets precise blueprint dimensions, require engineering skills.

Although acquiring such manufacturing skills requires time and money, the bosses don’t want to pay for learning. For low-wage manufacturing workers, learning these skills at school is costly. And it can be risky, since manufacturing jobs can change or disappear at a moment’s notice when it suits a company’s interest to close or move a plant, or put in new technology.

So, no wonder that, as a consequence of the dire economic and social conditions they have created, the manufacturing bosses cannot recruit enough workers.

The bosses may import skilled workers from other countries to address this labor shortage. But currently, the Trump administration is extremely hostile to immigrant workers, with or without legal papers.

The Trump administration has cut the budget for Medicare and Medicaid and is planning to cut Social Security and other social programs. Due to such cuts, workers, regardless of age, health, retirement status, or other factors, could be compelled to accept manufacturing jobs to make a living.

But whatever happens, companies won’t provide U.S. workers well-paying, stable, and safe manufacturing jobs.