New government data released August 1 shows that U.S. manufacturing employment continued to fall in July 2025—reaching its lowest level since April 2022—even as billions of dollars pour into new plants and reshoring initiatives nationwide. While policymakers often cite job creation as a central goal of bringing manufacturing back home, today’s highly automated factories mean employment is unlikely to return to past levels. In fact, U.S. manufacturing jobs have declined sharply over the past two decades, even as output has grown. A new analysis from ETQ identifies the U.S. states where manufacturing jobs have declined the most since 2000, utilizing the latest BLS and BEA data to examine nationwide changes, the sectors and locations hit hardest, and the widening gap between employment and output.