Useful Stats: Manufacturing Employment & Pay by State, 2001-2004

In SSTI's second look at the Geographic Area Statistics: 2004 from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Annual Survey of Manufactures, SSTI highlights more of the report's key findings, including data on employment, payroll, and average pay per employee. (The first look at 2004 statistics was in the March 6 issue of the Digest.)

All but two states experienced a decline in manufacturing employment between 2001-2004. Only Nevada and New Mexico saw increases of 8.95 percent and 0.66 percent, respectively, in manufacturing employment for the period. Interestingly, despite the declining numbers of paychecks issued across the country, the size of the checks apparently was increasing in many instances. The survey indicates that, in addition to the expected growth for payroll figures in the two manufacturing-growth states of Nevada and New Mexico, 19 states with employment reductions also experienced increases in payrolls over the four years. The phenomenon is not explained in the report. Nevada, New Mexico, Hawaii, Wyoming and Delaware showed the largest payroll increases of more than 10 percent.

Nationally, U.S. manufacturing employment and payroll decreased by 15.73 and 4.02 percent, respectively. However, an increase in average pay per employee was enjoyed by all 50 states from 2001-2004. Twenty-seven states experienced an increase larger than the national average of 13.90 percent, with Montana at the top at 26.40 percent. Virginia (21.87 percent), Hawaii (19.63 percent), Wyoming (19.63 percent) and Oklahoma (19.50 percent) round off the top five.

SSTI's table is available at: http://www.ssti.org/Digest/Tables/032006t.htm

State rankings of ASM statistics from 1997-2000 can be found at: http://www.ssti.org/Digest/Tables/032202t.htm

The Annual Survey of Manufactures, Geographic Area Statistics: 2004 is available at: http://www.census.gov/prod/ec02/am0431as1.pdf