US factories are booming, but finding workers is still a struggle
Noah Sheidlower
July 11, 2023
The US may be experiencing a factory boom, but finding the workers to staff them may be a more difficult task.
Data from the Census Bureau released last week shows construction spending on US manufacturing at its highest levels of the 2000s, nearly doubling from $110 billion in May 2022 to $194 billion in May 2023.
Despite that huge jump in manufacturing construction, employment in the sector has been stagnant over the last year, suggesting filling the new factories with workers could be difficult.
The US government has provided billions of dollars in subsidies for electric vehicle and solar panel production in an attempt to compete with countries such as China, whose global value added from manufacturing is about double that of the US.
