In the final weeks before Election Day, Vice President Kamala Harris has repeatedly taken aim at former President Donald Trump’s record on manufacturing jobs.
Specifically, Harris says that during the Trump administration, the U.S. lost almost 200,000 manufacturing jobs — and that almost 800,000 “new” manufacturing jobs have been added since President Biden took office.
Federal data shows Harris often cites largely accurate figures, though she has occasionally overstated gains made during the Biden administration. Additionally, her claims omit context about the significant role of the pandemic on both manufacturing job losses under Trump and subsequent increases under Mr. Biden.
What data says about manufacturing under Trump
At a rally in Michigan in early October, Harris said, “America lost nearly 200,000 manufacturing jobs” when Trump was president. Harris also claimed “those losses started before the pandemic.”
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, or BLS, Harris’ tally is largely correct; by the time Trump left office in January 2021, the U.S. had 178,000 fewer manufacturing jobs than when his presidency began.
A spokesperson for the Harris campaign said the pre-pandemic losses referred to the decline of 48,000 manufacturing jobs from January 2019 and February 2020, which is reflected in BLS data.
However, the vice president’s statements leave out some key context about Trump’s record. By March 2020, the U.S. had seen a net gain of over 350,000 manufacturing job gains during Trump’s term in office.
As the COVID-19 pandemic shut down parts of the economy in 2020, the U.S. shed 1.3 million manufacturing jobs between March and April of that year. The numbers began to trend upwards again in the months that followed but did not return to pre-pandemic levels by the time Trump left office in January 2021.
CBS News reached out to the Trump campaign for comment, and a spokesman pointed to Trump’s record on manufacturing jobs prior to the pandemic.
Before the pandemic hit, the number of manufacturing jobs in the U.S. had largely been growing since 2010, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. By the time former President Obama left office in 2017, the sector had mostly rebounded from the Great Recession, though there were 195,000 fewer manufacturing jobs than at the start of his presidency.
What data says about manufacturing under Biden-Harris
Manufacturing job numbers continued to rebound from pandemic losses after Biden and Harris took office; however, sometimes Harris overstates their record.
In a recent interview on “The View,” Harris claimed credit for “creating almost 800,000 new jobs around manufacturing.” At a separate event in October, she said 730,000 new manufacturing jobs were created.
Preliminary September data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that since Mr. Biden took office in January 2021, the U.S added around 729,000 manufacturing jobs.
The data suggests that not all of these were “new” manufacturing jobs that were created since Mr. Biden took office, as some of the job gains were likely jobs returning after the economic fallout of the COVID era. There were roughly 137,000 additional manufacturing jobs in September 2024 compared to pre-pandemic levels in February 2020.
The increase in the number of manufacturing jobs mainly occurred during the first two years of the Biden presidency and began to level off by his third year — a similar arc to Trump’s first three years in office.
It’s also worth noting that on Aug. 21, the Labor Department issued a preliminary revision of its data that estimated that the number of manufacturing jobs created over the 12 months ending in March was likely 115,000 lower than the original estimate. The final calculation should be issued in early 2025. If that revision holds up, it would put the total number of manufacturing jobs added during the Biden-Harris administration closer to 614,000.
Experts told CBS News the downward revision suggests the economy wasn’t quite as strong as it appeared to be for much of 2023 and early 2024. But revisions to jobs data aren’t unusual. The Labor Department routinely issues annual benchmark revisions to try to better account for companies that are either being created or going out of business.
Manufacturing generally declined over last 40 years
The number of U.S. manufacturing jobs have fallen sharply since reaching a peak of 19.6 million jobs in 1979, and today just under 13 million people are employed in the industry, according to data from the BLS.
During this period, manufacturing jobs declined under both Democratic and Republican presidents alike, as the industrial sector contracted due to economic factors largely beyond a president’s control, including multiple recessions and a rise in automation and international trade. The U.S. economy underwent massive structural changes starting in the 1970s, largely due to globalization. And Democratic and Republic and Republican administrations alike generally gave companies freedom to ship jobs overseas.
Some research suggests almost 1 million manufacturing jobs were lost to China from 1999 to 2011, after the U.S. normalized trade relations with the country.
-Julia Ingram contributed reporting
contributed to this report.