Mapping the Death of Manufacturing Jobs

In the last 30 years the USA has lost around 5 million manufacturing jobs. In 1990 around 17.7 million Americans were employed in manufacturing. In 2018 the sector employed 12.7 million. The CSIS iDeas Lab and the CSIS Trade Commission on Affirming American Leadership has created a story map which explores and explains where the decline of manufacturing jobs in the United States has hit employment the hardest.

The Landscape of Economic Change: 1990-2018 visualizes the fall in the number of manufacturing jobs across the United States. One of the hardest hit areas has been around the Great Lakes in the Industrial Midwest. This region has suffered particularly from the decline in the low-skill, labor intensive manufacturing sector. Another region badly hit by the decline in manufacturing has been the Piedmont South - which has suffered from the fall in textile and furniture manufacturing jobs.

Despite the fall in manufacturing jobs the 100 counties in the U.S. where manufacturing was most concentrated have actually seen a rise in overall employment because the growing service sector created a net growth in jobs. There are even a few regions which have experienced a growth in manufacturing employment. For example in the Midwest a number of counties have experienced a growth in the number of manufacturing jobs.

Despite the fall in manufacturing jobs the manufacturing sector itself has actually grown in the last 30 years. The manufacturing sector now produces roughly 30% more than it did in 1990. However, despite this rise, the drive to automation has led to an overall decline in the number of manufacturing jobs.

The Landscape of Economic Change story map was created using Mapbox's new Scrollytelling Template. This template is designed to help you create 'scrollytelling' map stories. This Mapbox scrollytelling demo map introduces the scrollytelling map format and shows you what you can achieve with the template.