The manufacturing sector gained 37,000 new jobs last month.
Good news, everyone.
Manufacturing’s steady job growth continued in July, with the sector adding 37,000 new jobs, the Labor Department reported on Friday. Over the past 12 months, manufacturing has gained an impressive 327,000 new jobs.
Things are indeed on the upswing, especially considering the fears that steel and aluminum tariffs put into place four months ago would not only halt factory job gains but lead to widespread losses. Indeed, the data has shown that the opposite has happened.
While some companies have had to adjust to the tariffs, the data shows that the manufacturing sector overall is doing just fine. Fabricated metals products, which include companies that consume a lot of steel and aluminum, reported 5,100 new jobs in July; the industry gained 7,000 jobs in June.
Meanwhile, nearly 7,000 new steel and aluminum industry jobs have been created since the Section 232 national security investigations into imports launched last year, about 6,000 of which have been created since the trade actions were announced.
After facing several years of layoffs and factory closures because of unfairly traded imports, these industries now have begun to stabilize, with mills in places like Granite City, Ill., and Lorain, Ohio restarting operations.
There’s a lot that can be done to encourage continued job growth, including placing additional pressure on China to stop its unfair trade practices, a better NAFTA agreement that supports working people, major infrastructure investment that will create jobs and make America more competitive, and workforce training to prepare workers for today’s advanced manufacturing workplaces.