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The number of manufacturing job openings in January was 803,000, up from December’s 797,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

What’s going on: Manufacturers hired 417,000 workers in January, an increase from 405,000 in December.

• Total separations—quits, firings, layoffs and retirements—increased to 399,000 from December’s 384,000.
• Net hiring—hiring minus separations—totaled 18,000 in January. This is down from 32,500, the net-hiring average for the past year.

The bigger picture: January’s numbers are down from the average of the past year, 844,750, which is well above pre-pandemic levels. 

• January saw more openings at nondurable goods firms than at durable goods firms.

Quits: Total quits in the manufacturing industry were nearly unchanged in January, slipping slightly to 260,000 from December’s 263,000.

• Overall manufacturing quits have dipped since peaking in March 2022.
• Total quits in the U.S. economy declined to 3.88 million, the slowest pace since May 2021 and down from 4.09 million in December.

Creators Connect: To help manufacturers fill all these openings, the Creators Wanted campaign has launched Creators Connect, the FactoryFix-powered jobs and pathways search engine that is now live at CreatorsWanted.org.

• Creators Connect is the first and only unified platform on which to search and explore career pathways, job openings and job training programs across the entire manufacturing sector.
• It hosts more than 400,000 job openings, helping manufacturers connect with more than 600,000 qualified candidates in FactoryFix’s network and more than 1 million students and early career entrants in the Creators Wanted network.

If you’d like to learn more, your teams can contact NAM Senior Director for Strategic Partnerships Barret Kedzior.