Labor Market by the Numbers
The big number: There were 547,000 manufacturing job openings in November, with 8,790,000 nonfarm business job openings. Both remained above pre-pandemic rates.
- The number of manufacturing quits edged up for the third straight month to 236,000 in November but remained not far from the slowest pace in three years. This is a sign that churn, which has been a major issue for manufacturers amid a tight labor market, has continued to ease.
- Meanwhile, for every 100 job openings in the U.S. economy, there were 71.6 unemployed workers, suggesting a still tight (but cooling) labor market.
Manufacturing employment: Firms added 6,000 workers in December. Manufacturing hiring was quite sluggish in 2023, with the sector adding 12,000 workers on net, following robust gains in 2021 and 2022. On the positive side, manufacturing employment has remained resilient, hovering near 13 million workers all year, with 12,986,000 in December.
- The average hourly earnings of production and nonsupervisory workers in manufacturing jumped 0.9% to $27.16 in December, with 5.8% growth over the past 12 months. That was the strongest year-over-year pace since April 2022, which was a 40-year high.
Nonfarm payrolls: Nonfarm employment rose by 216,000 in December. The U.S. economy has added 2,697,000 workers in 2023, a solid pace despite slowing from 4,793,000 in 2022.
- The unemployment rate remained at 3.7%, with the number of unemployed Americans little changed, inching up from 6,262,000 to 6,268,000.
- With that said, the labor force participation rate dropped from 62.8% to 62.5%, its weakest reading since February, as the number of Americans who are either employed or actively job-searching decreasing from a record 161,866,000 to 161,183,000. This suggests that a sizable number of individuals moved to the sidelines of the labor market in December—a trend that hopefully reverses in January.
Key takeaway: The labor market remains robust, providing resilience to the U.S. economy despite a challenging and uncertain environment. Yet, there are also signs that employment growth is easing—a welcome sign for manufacturing leaders who continue to struggle to identify and retain talent.
