364 Manufacturing Reports from Economic Census Industry Series

In recognition of Manufacturing Day on October 3, the Census Bureau presents descriptions of its wide array of data products on the manufacturing sector of the economy. Additionally, statistics on all 364 industries in the manufacturing sector are now available from the 2012 Economic Census.

Click to enlarge

Data includes:

• 2012 Economic Census Industry Series
• 2012 County Business Patterns
• Annual Survey of Manufactures
• Survey of Plant Capacity Utilization
• Manufacturers’ Shipments, Inventories, and Orders (M3)
• U.S. International Trade in Goods
• Additional Economic Indicators

Also released is a county-level thematic map (right) showing the percentage of the civilian employed population employed in manufacturing jobs.


For more information including links, see the U.S. Census Bureau.

Upswing in U.S. Manufacturing & the Implications for Northern Utah

Tyson Smith - Economist

Recently, there have been a number of indicators suggesting that domestic manufacturing is gathering momentum (here, here and here, for example).  And while market forces have been working against keeping production in the United States for decades, we are starting to see economic incentives for “reshoring” manufacturing.  The financial advantages of outsourcing production to countries with lower labor costs still exist, but the margins for doing so are thinner than they were as recently as 10 years ago.  Furthermore, the shift toward automated production has put a higher premium on skilled labor versus inexpensive labor.

Even though the aforementioned structural shifts toward “reshoring” have encouraged increases in domestic manufacturing, the majority of the gains in output over the last 3 years have been a result of the global economy recovering from the Great Recession.  The pertinent question for us to examine is: How has the recovery affected employment in the manufacturing industry in Northern Utah? 

Brigham City Seeks Input on Economic Strategies

The Brigham City Community and Economic Development Department – with support from Box Elder County – has been conducting a study in order to develop strategies that will help to grow four distinct business clusters in the community that are comprised of the aerospace and composites, structural steel, shooting sports and agricultural areas of concentration.

Box Elder County’s economic development director, Mitch Zundel, said that while this is primarily a Brigham City driven project, the county is following along closely since the scope of the cluster analysis will impact the county as a whole.

Through grants from the U.S. Department of Commerce and other federal, state and local agencies and businesses, Brigham City Corporation has hired former Ogden City Mayor Matthew Godfrey’s consulting firm to draft this industry cluster analysis. Box Elder News Journal

West Liberty Foods to Expand in Tremonton

West Liberty Foods is about to launch another major expansion at its Tremonton plant.

The company, whose headquarters are in West Liberty, Iowa, said it is planning to add more than 34,000 square feet of manufacturing and storage space to its Utah facility. The expansion is expected to be completed in August 2013.

The expansion will be the third addition to the facility since it opened in 2007.

Ed Garrett, president and CEO for West Liberty Foods, said in a statement announcing the expansion that the company needed the additional space because of increasing sales volume. He said the addition will bring an estimated 10 million pounds of additional manufacturing capabilities to the Tremonton facility.

"The expansion of the Tremonton, Utah facility is part of our company’s continued success, and the additional space will serve to benefit our customers," he said in the statement.

West Liberty Foods is a co-packer and private label manufacturer of sliced deli meats and other fully-cooked products.

The Tremonton plant employs 530 Utahns. Salt Lake Tribune

P&G to cut 5,700 jobs globally in restructuring

Consumer products maker Procter & Gamble Inc. said Thursday it plans to cut 5,700 jobs worldwide over the next year and a half as part of a cost-cutting plan.

The company’s new plant in Box Elder County, however, will be unaffected by the layoffs because P&G does not plan to eliminate any manufacturing jobs as part of its effort to trim its workforce.

The Utah plant, opened last March, employs approximately 200 Utahns. It produces Charmin toilet paper and Bounty paper towels. Salt Lake Tribune

More Goldfish mean more jobs for Cache County

It seems that Pepperidge Farm needs more space to make cheesy goldfish snacks. So it is planning to invest $44 million and add jobs as it expands its plant near Richmond, in Cache Valley. The investment will be used to reconfigure the facility and add a third Goldfish production line.

The new line will boost production by around 30 million pounds a year, doubling the poundage of Goldfish produced. And that means the plant, which has been in operation for 38 years, will be adding as many as 54 workers to the plant's current workforce of 385. Salt Lake Tribune

Goldfish cracker expansion to create 54 Cache County jobs

Commercial baker Pepperidge Farm Inc. plans to create 54 new jobs in Richmond beginning in 2014 because of increased demand for its Goldfish crackers. The Cache County facility was chosen to receive expansions to increase Goldfish production over Pepperidge’s three other facilities in Pennsylvania, Florida and Ohio. The project will last 10 years, in which the company expects to invest up to $45 million in capital improvements. Deseret News

ATK lays off 100 in sixth cut in Utah over two years

ATK Aerospace Systems told employees in June it would conduct another round of layoffs in its aerospace systems group. On Wednesday it followed through, cutting 100 in the wake of NASA’s shutdown of the U.S. space shuttle program. ATK spokeswoman Trina Patterson said that among the number, 28 were volunteers and five were transferred to other divisions. Salt Lake Tribune

Utah’s ATK plans more shuttle-related layoffs

Alliant Techsystems Inc. is preparing to lay off up to 100 workers next month as it continues to adjust the size of its workforce to deal with the end of the nation’s space shuttle program. The company, which made the twin solid-fuel booster motors used to propel the shuttle into low-Earth orbit, said it has yet to determine how many of its workers will be let go. The pending reduction will be the sixth layoff for the company’s aerospace systems group in the past two years. Salt Lake Tribune

ATK gets $57 million deal

A contract for ATK to supply a second stage motor for a commercial space-launch vehicle will keep people working in the company's Utah facilities, a spokeswoman said Monday. ATK announced it was awarded a $57 million contract to provide the Castor® 30XL, an upgraded second stage motor for Orbital Science Corporation's Taurus® II commercial launch vehicle, which will supply cargo for NASA to the International Space Station.

Work on that motor system has already been performed at ATK's Promontory facility, according to spokeswoman Trina Patterson. ATK has suffered about 2,100 layoffs in Utah in the past two years as the space shuttle program is replaced, including 134 jobs lost at the start of April. ATK made motors for the space shuttles.

The new contract will not allow the company to rehire employees who had been laid off, Pattrerson said, "but it will sustain jobs in the current program." Ogden Standard-Examiner

ATK lays off another 134 aerospace employees

On Tuesday, Alliant Techsystems Inc. informed 134 employees that they were out of work immediately. The end of the space shuttle program and a decision to change the focus of the next-generation ARES space exploration program led to the reduction in force, the fifth for the company’s aerospace division in the past two years.

The layoffs, which include 51 voluntary retirements, impact employees at ATK facilities in Promontory, Clearfield and West Valley City. The eliminated positions are across the board, from engineers and technicians to office workers. All will receive severance packages based on their years or service to the company. ATK’s aerospace systems division now has about 2,100 employees, 45 percent of its total in early 2009. Salt Lake Tribune

P&G opens new plant in Box Elder County

Box Elder County welcomed 200 new jobs Wednesday. Global household products maker Procter & Gamble Co. officially opened its first manufacturing facility built in the United States in 40 years. The 600,000 square foot plant sits on a 720-acre site and is the sixth in the company's towel/tissue operations. It stands adjacent to a 400,000 square foot distribution center that began operations in April 2010. The total cost of the combined project was approximately $300 million. Deseret News

Governors Office of Economic Development OKs $30 million expansion incentive for Cache Valley manufacturer

The Board of the Governor’s Office of Economic Development Thursday approved a post-performance tax rebate to assist a meatpacking and processing facility to expand in Cache County. JBS USA Holdings Inc. will invest more than $30 million in the development of a new and expanded facility in Hyrum. When completed, the facility will employ 420 new full time staff in addition to the nearly 1,000 current employees already working at the location.

The new positions will offer wages in excess of 100 percent of the Cache County average wage, including full benefits. New state wages paid over the 10-year life of the incentive should exceed $115 million and the state expects to receive more than $8.7 million in new taxes paid over the same period. Deseret News

Economic hopes for new ATK rocket

Alliant Techsystems of Utah and its partners unveiled on Tuesday a two-stage rocket called Liberty that it hopes will be the next launch vehicle for the U.S. space program. It’s the latest effort by ATK, the military contractor with 2,100 Utah employees in the company’s aerospace division, to revamp a propulsion system partially stalled by the Obama administration.

The Liberty would use a Utah-built rocket motor as the first stage, while ATK partners with the European company Astrium to complete the launch vehicle. ATK hopes NASA will accept the company’s bid to use the rocket, perhaps preserving 400 Utah jobs and adding a few more.

NASA is accepting project proposals for the next generation of rockets to take astronauts to the International Space Station. ATK said it will build Liberty using existing dollars, but it hopes NASA will award the company a portion of a $200 million pool of money set aside for promising projects. The company with operations in Utah said that, with the money, it can move up the test launch to 2013. Salt Lake Tribune

Utah rocket-motor maker terminates more workers

Alliant Techsystems Inc., the maker of solid-fuel rocket motors used by the nation’s space program and the military, notified 348 of its Utah workers today that they will be losing their jobs. The company announced the layoffs even as its was publicly stating it was “encouraged” by passage in the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday of a NASA authorization bill that lays the foundation for future space exploration. In addition to the 348 workers who will lose their jobs on Oct. 5, another 66 voluntarily consented to leave the company. The Salt Lake Tribune