Weak December Jobs Numbers for Manufacturing.
U.S. manufacturing gains 9,000 jobs in December 2013, total of 77,000 new jobs for 2013.
#AAMeter Now Stands at +77,000 Jobs.
Nearly one year into President Obama’s second term, his stated goal of creating one million new manufacturing jobs by 2017 has become more elusive than ever. With fresh numbers for December factored in, the data shows that the U.S. added only 77,000 new manufacturing jobs in 2013. The jobs report showed an upward revision of manufacturing jobs in November: 31,000 were added that month. But December’s total was a major miss: only 9,000 jobs were added, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Commented Scott Paul, President of the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM):
“Talk of a manufacturing resurgence is very premature. The last two years were very weak for manufacturing employment, and 2014 won’t be much better unless Congress and the administration get their collective acts together. Now that the Federal Reserve had signaled a 'tapering' of its monetary stimulus, a jobs plan must be priority number one. That means public investment in infrastructure, research, and worker training; a focus on cutting the trade deficit by passing currency reform legislation; and enacting a manufacturing plan along the lines of what Senate Democrats have proposed.”
The #AAMeter.
President Obama set a goal of creating 1 million new manufacturing jobs in his second term. To follow the president's progress, the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) maintains a manufacturing jobs tracker, the #AAMeter, based on monthly jobs data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
In a Huffington Post op-ed this week, Paul urged President Obama to chart a stronger course for domestic manufacturing in 2014.