White House hails manufacturing rebound, but payrolls remain below January 2025

The White House said on 22 October that President Donald Trump’s policies were driving a US manufacturing resurgence. Its headline figure — 72,000 more manufacturing jobs in 2026 — reflects a rebound, but not a full recovery from the decline earlier in his term.

Seasonally adjusted Bureau of Labor Statistics figures put manufacturing employment at 12.580 million in December 2025 and a provisional 12.652 million in September 2026. That is a gain of 72,000 jobs. It is also 21,000 below the January 2025 level of 12.673 million. The bureau described September’s increase of 9,000 as little change for the month.

The release draws on a Council of Economic Advisers analysis posted on 10 October. It also describes more than 111,000 additional jobs since January 2025 as “factory construction jobs”. The council identifies the figure as employment among non-residential specialist construction contractors — a broader category that includes work on buildings other than factories. The increase does not establish how many of those jobs involved factory projects.

On wages, the release gives different annual figures without consistently distinguishing the workers counted. The council’s table estimates inflation-adjusted gains in annualised average weekly earnings to August 2026 of $1,945 for manufacturing workers overall and $2,486 when managers are excluded. The corresponding construction figures are $2,883 and $3,824. These are changes in group averages, not necessarily raises received by the same individual workers.

The job gains and the council’s wage estimates support a picture of recent improvement. The payroll figures alone cannot show that Trump’s tariffs or other policies caused it, or that jobs moved back to the US from abroad, as the administration claims.