How the US employment boom is leaving factory workers behind

Dan Ariens laid off workers, cut shifts, and halted nearly all hiring last summer after sales slumped at his company, best known for making bright orange snow blowers and lawnmowers sold around the world. Headcount fell 20% to 1,600 people, and he doesn't see business improving until 2025. 

The experience of the Ariens Company, a fourth-generation family-owned firm in Brillion, Wisconsin, shows the stark contrast between U.S. factory employment — essentially flat-lining for more than a year — and the four-year boom in the wider job market. 

President Joe Biden's industrial policy, headlined by legislation passed in 2022 that sparked a surge of factory construction, is aimed at boosting semiconductors, electric vehicles and green technologies, as well as other sectors. 

 As the presidential campaign shifts into higher gear ahead of November's election, Biden is touring factories to tout his accomplishments, especially to voters in battleground states. 

Even as construction is booming and some segments of heavy industry continue to hum, such as those that supply goods for government-funded infrastructure projects, the larger outlook for jobs in manufacturing is weak. Economists mostly attribute that to a combination of high interest rates, a slowing economy, and the end of the COVID-19 demand surge for many kinds of manufactured goods. 

The Biden administration contends it's too soon to see the full fruits of its efforts. It takes about six to eight quarters for manufacturing investments to translate into factory jobs, a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisors told Reuters in an interview. And as the Federal Reserve moves to cut interest rates, which is expected later this year, more jobs will follow. 

«If you look in different pockets of the country — in North Carolina or Georgia — companies are already hiring before they're breaking ground,» said Elisabeth Reynolds, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology manufacturing and economic development researcher, who previously served on Biden's National Economic Council. «That's a sign of things to come.» 

The most rapid jobs recovery ever

For now, Deere & Co, Whirlpool Corp, 3M Co and other large producers