Turns Out Workers Have To Rack Up College Debt If They Want Piece Of Manufacturing Resurgence

The United States manufacturing industry is creating jobs, but not for blue-collar workers lacking a college education.

US factories have netted new jobs since December, The Wall Street Journal reported. Factory supervisory, management and office staff have grown so far this year, according to Labor Department payroll data. However, jobs on the production floor shrank during the same period, the Business Model Analyst reported.

US manufacturing has seen a job opening resurgence, adding 72,000 new jobs in 2026 so far, according to the Labor Department. However, this net gain is due to manufacturing office and management adding 95,000 jobs so far in the year, according to the Business Model Analyst when inspecting Labor Department payroll data. Jobs on the production floor fell by 23,000.

Robots are increasingly responsible for working on the production floor, and so while workers who were traditionally responsible for repetitive manufacturing tasks are being replaced, the role of engineers to enhance and optimize these automated machines has grown, WSJ reported.

Furthermore, the roles of blue-collar workers on the production floor have changed because of automation. Workers on the production floor must be skilled technicians who can perform maintenance on these complicated machines that do the heavy, repetitive lifting, WSJ reported.

This fact would help explain why the average pay between a production floor worker and a worker involved in administration is closing: low-skilled labor roles aren’t being refilled, and those that remain on the floor are requiring more experience and technical skills, according to Business Model Analyst.

In the airplane manufacturing industry, over 50% of the employees have a college degree, the WSJ reported. While the US semiconductor industry is expected to grow 203% by 2032, the semiconductor factories are more likely than any other manufacturing industry to hire college grads, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association and the WSJ.

Because of the growing requirement for STEM expertise, this manufacturing job growth is likely to favor foreign-born workers in America. Over 22% of STEM graduates of American universities are foreign, according to the Educational Testing Service. Around 57% of STEM PhD graduates are foreign-born.

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