It was not all that long ago that the manufacturing sector was responsible for its highest capital investments in decades. Those investments did not necessarily result in net job creation, but they seemed to reflect confidence in the national economy. But then the current administration decided to pull the plug on incentives and support for green energy, EVs, etc. Now other countries like China are dominating these markets.
I will note that you credit BLS for the Quarterly Workforce data that … are only available thru Q2 24. These are hugely lagged Census data. But do show a long term decline in manufacturing very nicely.
I am glad that you included the Business Employment Dynamics that are cited as from BLS correctly. These are far more current and hopefully will be your go-to dataset going forward. One advantage of these is they are based on establishments being born- —-an actual physical location having been actually created with employees. They do not carry the extra burden of deciding whether a new business filing for an EIN is likely to be a real employer or not. … granted I suspect that new EIN’s in the manufacturing industry are less likely to be a single owner making physical stuff for sale from the garage.
BED data go back to 1991 as I recall so they could also have shown the long term decline.
I like your focus on the dynamics underlying high level measures such as the monthly payroll survey.
jOLTS also provides far
More current dynamics data that should guide your next piece.
While I love the robustness of the business universe data, looking for signals of policy effectiveness needs the current data, CES, JOLTS, and even the slightly lagged QCEW, and BED need your attention.
The St. Louis Fed graph indicates that labor relative to capital has not participated in the productivity gains over the past years.
It was not all that long ago that the manufacturing sector was responsible for its highest capital investments in decades. Those investments did not necessarily result in net job creation, but they seemed to reflect confidence in the national economy. But then the current administration decided to pull the plug on incentives and support for green energy, EVs, etc. Now other countries like China are dominating these markets.
Thanks for this analysis.
I will note that you credit BLS for the Quarterly Workforce data that … are only available thru Q2 24. These are hugely lagged Census data. But do show a long term decline in manufacturing very nicely.
I am glad that you included the Business Employment Dynamics that are cited as from BLS correctly. These are far more current and hopefully will be your go-to dataset going forward. One advantage of these is they are based on establishments being born- —-an actual physical location having been actually created with employees. They do not carry the extra burden of deciding whether a new business filing for an EIN is likely to be a real employer or not. … granted I suspect that new EIN’s in the manufacturing industry are less likely to be a single owner making physical stuff for sale from the garage.
BED data go back to 1991 as I recall so they could also have shown the long term decline.
I like your focus on the dynamics underlying high level measures such as the monthly payroll survey.
jOLTS also provides far
More current dynamics data that should guide your next piece.
While I love the robustness of the business universe data, looking for signals of policy effectiveness needs the current data, CES, JOLTS, and even the slightly lagged QCEW, and BED need your attention.