Labor Market by the Numbers
In July 2025, job openings for manufacturing increased by 41,000 to 437,000 from June, which is back to the average pre-pandemic (2017– 2019) level of job openings of 432,000. Nondurable goods job openings in July rose by 23,000 to 176,000, while durable goods job openings ticked up by 18,000 to 261,000 in July. The manufacturing job openings rate increased to 3.3% from 3.0% in June but fell from 3.7% the previous year.
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The Headline Number: While the number of job openings increased in manufacturing in July, job postings declined in the larger economy to 7.2 million, a decrease of 176,000 from the previous month and 323,000 from the previous year. The job openings rate declined to 4.3%, down from 4.4% in June and from 4.5% last year.
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What it means: Although job openings in manufacturing remain far below the half-a-million mark that was average through 2024, turnover remains low. That means most firms are holding on to the talent they have, providing some optimism that the weakness we’ve seen in manufacturing isn’t too severe.
Manufacturing Hiring is Picking Back Up: After sliding for the last few months, the manufacturing hires rate picked up 0.2% in July to 2.5%, indicating manufacturers are starting to backfill some of those jobs of those who have left in recent months.
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Cooler Labor Market: As the job market cooled over the last year, the manufacturing hires rate fell below the pre-pandemic (2017-2019) average. Although the hires rate remains below that average as activity has slowed, the rate bounced back in July to the same level as early this year when production made strong gains. Nonetheless, it remains to be seen whether this improvement in July will become a trend or short-lived.
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Investing in Retention: With a slower pace of hiring, employers have space to focus on strategies that prioritize investments in their existing workforce and upskill workers.
