The best-kept secret in the U.S. economy right now is that we’re experiencing a manufacturing renaissance.
Durable goods manufacturing added 18,000 jobs in July, its best month of the year. Over the three months through July, durable goods payrolls rose 44,000. Motor vehicles and parts accounted for 7,900 of the July gain. Machinery added 2,600, fabricated metals 2,500, and computers and electronics 2,900, including 1,700 semiconductor jobs.
During the first four months of the year, durable goods added 28,000 jobs, an average of 7,000 a month. May, June, and July produced 44,000 jobs, an average of nearly 15,000. The pace of hiring has more than doubled.
Durable goods payrolls have now risen in every month of 2026, adding 72,000 jobs and averaging better than 10,000 a month. That is the first run of seven consecutive monthly gains since the streak that ended in January 2023. Year-over-year employment turned positive in June and widened to 35,000 in July, the first positive readings after 30 consecutive months of decline.
A genuine drought has ended. Prior to July, the last three-month gain of this size came in the period ending in December 2022. The next 42 monthly reports came and went without another strong three-month period.
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