Over 400,000 US manufacturing jobs vacant amid upheaval over tariffs

The US manufacturing sector is struggling to fill over 400,000 jobs, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show, as companies say they are having a difficult time planning ahead due to the upheaval from tariffs.

President Donald Trump has vowed to harken back to the golden age of US manufacturing to boost the economy and create solid jobs for the working class. This, he says, is partly why he has enacted tariffs on foreign countries.

"Jobs and factories will come roaring back into our country," Trump said in a speech about tariffs in April. "And ultimately, more production at home will mean stronger competition and lower prices for consumers."

But while China, the United Kingdom and Vietnam have inked trade deals with the US, many other foreign nations are still in limbo. At least 14 countries received letters from Trump on Monday, informing them that they will face higher tariffs,

which was intended to hasten trade negotiations by a new Aug 1 deadline.

The United States will also impose tariffs of 25 percent on goods from Tunisia, Malaysia and Kazakhstan, and 30 percent on Bosnia and Herzegovina. Levies of 32 percent on Indonesia, 35 percent on Serbia and Bangladesh, 36 percent on Cambodia and Thailand, and 40 percent on Laos and Myanmar, will also be imposed, Reuters reports.

The domestic manufacturing sector is watching closely as it is already dealing with a large swath of its most reliable work force — Baby Boomers — retiring. On top of that, some businesses have been facing difficulty recruiting new blood for years, The National Association of Manufacturers found.

US companies have consistently cited "finding the right workforce" as a top concern in the association's quarterly survey. And, for the second quarter in a row, its 2025 survey found that most manufacturers said that trade uncertainty now tops their list of concerns as it will likely raise operating costs.

"When asked what manufacturers expect to happen with raw material prices and other input costs, respondents expect those costs to increase 5.8 percent on average, the highest rate of increase since the second quarter of 2022 when the inflation rate was between 8 percent and 9 percent," the survey found.

"High tariffs are needlessly raising the costs of raw and intermediate inputs that contain steel, aluminum, copper and lumber," Thomas Fullerton, an American economist and professor of economics and finance at the University of Texas at El Paso, told China Daily. He predicts that while inflation remains low, the higher prices for goods could impact several industries.

In some parts of the country, like the Rust Belt, manufacturing created millions of jobs in the years after World War II, especially for men without a college degree.

In 1979, manufacturing jobs in the US accounted for about 22 percent of the workforce, but by 2024, that number had dwindled to just 8 percent.

Since the 1980s, these jobs were largely outsourced to China, shifting the US from a powerhouse manufacturing hub to more of a consumer economy.

In 2020, manufacturing jobs in China accounted for approximately 28.7 percent of the workforce — a number similar to the heyday of US manufacturing nearly five decades earlier.

In June, the US and China signed a trade deal that, it is hoped, will give manufacturers and businesses a clearer road ahead on some crucial imports and exports.

Gary Hufbauer, a nonresident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington DC, told China Daily that the agreement by China and the US will "enable each country to obtain critical items from the other. This will avoid industrial shutdowns in both countries."

Other reasons for the number of US job vacancies in manufacturing includes the crackdown by the Trump administration on illegal immigration and deportation.

It is estimated that at least 8.3 million undocumented immigrants worked in the labor market in 2023. This was 5.4 percent of all workers, according to data from the Center for Migration Studies of New York. Around 200,000 undocumented people work in food processing and manufacturing.

To kickstart the training necessary for a new generation of factory workers, the Trump administration has created the Make America Skilled Again initiative.

It will give a grant to any state that has a training program, but the state must allocate 10 percent of that funding solely to apprenticeships, The New York Times reported.

It comes after the popular "Job Corps" training program by the Department of Labor was defunded. It gave free vocational training to adults aged 16 to 24.

While the country has a vast number of college graduates, most are unqualified to do the job of a factory worker, said businesses.

National Association of Manufacturers President and CEO Jay Timmons praised the 'One Big Beautiful Act' that passed in the House last week as it will "drive manufacturers closer to the goal line — growing businesses, creating jobs and powering stronger communities."

Yet the act cut $1.6 billion from workforce training programs.

Manufacturers are also dealing with the rise of automation and artificial intelligence as the factory floor sees more robots.

In North America, robot density was 197 units per 10,000 employees in 2023 — up 4.2 percent from 2016 — the International Federation of Robotics said in a report last year.

The US ranks 10th among the most automated countries in the manufacturing industry. China has more robots than the US, Germany and Japan, Stanford University research showed.