Manufacturing Jobs Aren’t That Easy to Count

January 9, 2026

TL;DR

There are significant discrepancies between business surveys (12.3 million manufacturing jobs in 2023) and worker surveys (15.1 million manufacturing jobs in 2023).
The difference of 2.8 million manufacturing jobs is substantial enough to impact policy discussions.
Personal family history with Boeing is used to illustrate how job counting can become complicated.
Businesses are often directed to categorize workers based on the majority activity of their facility, not their specific job role.
This categorization method can lead to workers being counted as manufacturing employees even when in non-manufacturing roles within a manufacturing facility, or vice versa.

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