Manufacturing forecast: Cloudy with silver linings

Are there any fast-growing manufacturing jobs, you might ask? It's a fair question, given the news reports on the industry since 2008. 

The manufacturing sector has been hit hard in recent years by outsourcing and automation, and employment is down across many of the industries that have long provided stable, decent-paying manufacturing jobs. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which provides employment projections for a wide range of occupations, has mostly bad news to report when it comes to manufacturing. But there are a few bright spots, and some of the bad news isn't as bad as it seems at first glance.

The information below was culled from BLS projections between 2008 and 2018. Bear in mind that the average job growth across all occupations is around 11 percent.
 
Pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing
6 percent growth
Demand for drugs is likely to grow over the next several years, driven by the aging population and the expansion of health insurance plans, among other factors. Predictably, the scientists and engineers who develop new drugs will be in high demand: employment growth for engineers is projected at 22.9 percent, and it's 22.2 percent for biochemists and biophysicists and 22.1 percent for medical scientists.

But a few of the blue-collar jobs within this field will see big increases, too. Industrial machinery mechanics have a projected 20 percent growth. And mixing and blending machine setters, operators and tenders are projected to see a whopping 41.9 percent employment increase.

Food manufacturing
No projected change in employment
Food manufacturing is more streamlined and automated than ever before, which has contributed to the flat employment for this sector. However, food processing jobs are likely to see 4 percent growth overall, largely because there are some jobs -- like gutting fish or baking muffins -- that you just can't completely automate. Among these workers, food batchmakers (who make prepackaged food) have the largest projected increase at 9 percent.

Aerospace product and parts manufacturing
No projected change in employment
As in similar industries, employment in aerospace manufacturing has been hurt by outsourcing and stripped-down production. However, rising worldwide demand for aircraft and a large number of retiring workers mean decent prospects for job seekers. On the business side, both purchasing agents and logisticians are projected to see a 6.9 percent employment increase. Computer specialists of several types will also see slight gains, with the largest of these (8.4 percent) for software engineers. Production workers are projected to experience declines, except for aircraft structure, surfaces, rigging and systems assemblers, who will see 8.4 percent growth.

Steel manufacturing
13 percent decline
If any industry has come to symbolize the decline of American manufacturing, it might be steel. Steelworkers have seen their jobs disappear rapidly over the last few decades.

But there is a silver lining in this cloudy outlook, according to the BLS. The agency's Career Guide to Industries notes that "job opportunities should be very good for engineers and skilled production and maintenance workers." That's because factories are already automated as much as possible, and because the computerized equipment used in steel production requires skilled operators and repair technicians. For that reason, production workers with computer and technical training will have an edge.