Labor Market by the Numbers
Job postings: In December 2024, job openings for manufacturing dropped by 11,000 to 428,000 from November. The manufacturing job openings rate fell 0.1% to 3.2% in December and declined from 4.3% the previous year. Nondurable goods job openings decreased by 17,000, while durable goods job openings increased by 6,000.
In the larger economy, the number of job openings fell to 7.6 million, a decrease of 556,000 from the previous month and 1.3 million from the previous year. The job openings rate decreased to 4.5%, down from 4.9% in November and from 5.3% last year.
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Key takeaways: The manufacturing labor market has eased back to pre-pandemic (2017 to 2019) levels, when the average number of openings in the sector was 432,000, in contrast with the average of 832,500 between 2021 and 2023.
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While this data reflects a labor market that has cooled significantly, steady hiring and low layoffs suggest the labor market remains solid.
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Bottomline: There continues to be more job openings than people actively looking for work, with 90.6 unemployed workers for every 100 job openings in the U.S. economy. And as every manufacturer knows, the available talent pool does not necessarily have the skills needed to step into the open roles.
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The headline number: The overall unemployment rate ticked down to 4.0% in January, with 143,000 jobs gained from December. The employment gain was below the expectation of 170,000, but December and November’s job gains were revised upward substantially by a combined 100,000.
Meanwhile, manufacturing gained 3,000 jobs, following the December loss of 12,000 jobs. The most significant losses in manufacturing in January occurred in transportation equipment, which shed 12,400 jobs over the month. Meanwhile, the most significant gains occurred in fabricated metal products, which added 3,800 jobs over the month.
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While the overall unemployment rate is up 0.3% from last year (3.7% in January 2024), the rate has edged down slightly from 4.2% in November 2024. The unemployment rate for manufacturing remains slightly below the overall nonfarm unemployment rate at 3.9% but is up from 3.4% last year. All signs point to a cooling but steady labor market.
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While manufacturing activity turned a corner in January, so did employment. Although a few notable losses occurred, such as for transportation equipment, there were employment gains across most manufacturing sectors.
