'A Fool's Errand': The Fatal Flaw Behind a U.S. Manufacturing Revival

Much has been said about the prohibitive cost of moving complex manufacturing supply chains back to the United States, but something far more fundamental stands in the way of the Trump administration's "Made in America" aspirations, as the country struggles with a years-long deficit of skilled workers willing to take those jobs on in the first place.  

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. had an estimated 450,000 unfilled manufacturing positions as of February 2025, and that number hasn't dipped below 300,000 in nearly a decade. An August 2024 Cato Institute survey of 2,000 people illustrates why that is, with just 25% saying that they would feel better off working in a factory than in their current job, despite 80% agreeing that the country would be better off if more Americans worked in the manufacturing sector.

"Americans love the idea of people working in manufacturing, but most don’t think they would benefit from such work themselves," the economic think tank noted in its summary of the survey.

Manufacturing jobs in the U.S. have also steadily declined as a share of total employment since 1943, especially as wages for less demanding service industry jobs began to catch up to factory salaries. By the 1960s, the average hourly pay for a manufacturing job was just 42 cents higher than standard pay for a service role, with average wages for service industry jobs fully outpacing manufacturing by the early 2000s. Given that shift, any attempt to move overseas manufacturing to the U.S. en masse would ultimately be "a fool's errand," warns Cato Institute vice president and director Norbert Michel. 

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That's further compounded by efforts from the Trump administration to curb immigration, says Randal Kenworthy, who works with leading manufacturers across the U.S. as the consumer and industrial products practice lead for consultancy firm West Monroe. As Kenworthy points out, nearly one in every five U.S. manufacturing jobs today are filled by either documented or undocumented immigrant workers. If any significant portion of that population is swept up in the wave of mass deportations currently underway, it becomes that much more difficult to establish a workforce capable of filling the factory roles the Trump administration is hoping to create. 

"It's that combination of trying to bring back jobs that U.S. workers don't want, while simultaneously pushing out the workforce that is willing to do that work," Kenworthy explains. "We're putting ourselves through massive economic pain and turmoil with the end result being unattainable."  

So, what would it take to create even a shred of hope for revitalizing American manufacturing? First and foremost, says Kenworthy, it would require a coordinated national effort to educate and hire a new generation of workers, with federal investments to encourage people to enter trade schools and community colleges, where they would be able to gain the skills needed to work on a modern manufacturing line. 

Factories now also barely resemble the images of the Industrial Revolution conjured in the minds of most Americans when they imagine an assembly line. In the past, someone working at a factory would be mechanically astute, but was likely to only have a high school degree given the relative simplicity of most roles in the early-to-mid-1900s. Today, a well-paying manufacturing job requires a hard science background, centered around engineering, technical proficiency, or in many cases, wiring and operating complex automated technology. 

"We don’t want to bring back the jobs of yesterday — we want to enable the operational efficiency and innovation of tomorrow," Kenworthy says, stressing the need to "skate to where the puck is going" as manufacturing roles continue to evolve.

The exact type of manufacturing the U.S. hones in on will factor heavily as well. Textile and garment industry jobs aren't likely to attract American workers, Kenworthy theorizes, given the relatively low pay, poor hours and high physical demands. The focus instead should be on "anything in the high-tech sector," including the semiconductor sector, pharmaceuticals, automotive and aerospace, all of which beget the need for highly-skilled, well-trained workers with engineering backgrounds.

The problem right now, though, is that the infrastructure to educate and entice these workers simply doesn't exist, and there are currently no plans to build that out anytime soon, all while the Trump administration has sought to deport the very people who would want those manufacturing jobs the most. 

"A broad program to empower and build a next-generation manufacturing workforce would be what is necessary to make this effective," Kenworthy posits. "Without that, all this effort to bring manufacturing back to the United States is not going to be effective."