The U.S. Manufacturing Construction Boom

Companion Excel Workbook: Manufacturing Construction Boom

Stacked area chart of U.S. manufacturing construction spending 1993 to 2026, split into the computer/electronic/electrical category in red and all other manufacturing in gray. Total spending peaks at 249 billion dollars in September 2024. Labels with leader lines identify the CEE layer at 53 billion dollars and the ex-CEE layer at 117 billion dollars as of June 2026.

U.S. Manufacturing Construction Spending, 1993–2026: monthly, seasonally adjusted annual rate, nominal dollars, buildings and site work only (production machinery excluded). CEE = Census computer/electronic/electrical category (chip fabs, battery plants, solar and electrical equipment).[1] | Chart: CRE42

U.S. manufacturing construction reached an annualized rate of $249B in September 2024, up more than three times from its pre-pandemic high and representing the largest industrial building campaign in the modern data.[1]

The largest segment growth occurred in the U.S. Census Bureau’s CEE manufacturing category, including semi-conductors (chips), battery, solar and electrical equipment.[1]

CEE manufacturing generally does not bring as many jobs per dollar invested as other more traditional manufacturing, and massive job growth has not transpired, aside from construction jobs during build-out.

Use of factory automation through AI and robotics continues to edge out factory workers at a gradual but persistent pace, exacerbating the divergence between invested capital, productivity and employment growth.

Data centers do not fall into the U.S. Census Bureau’s Manufacturing segment, but produce low employment numbers relative to the massive investments currently underway.

Construction is only about a fifth of total factory investment. Census construction figures cover buildings and site work only. Machinery was 77.8% of manufacturing capital spending in 2021 (semiconductor devices 76.8%, battery manufacturing 95.4%, the highest of any industry), so the $249 billion construction peak implies total factory investment on the order of $1.1 trillion annualized once equipment is included, and June 2026 implies roughly $770 billion (approximation; see Methodology).[7]

Computer/electronic/electrical construction (chip fabs, battery plants, solar and electrical equipment) went from 12% of manufacturing construction in January 2020 to 50% at the September 2024 peak, and accounted for 68% of the entire rise. Ex-CEE construction remained generally stable, falling from $124 billion at the peak month to $117 billion in June 2026.[1]

Roughly 70% of the rise came after the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act were enacted in August 2022, when manufacturing construction was running at $128 billion.[1]

Spending has fallen every month of 2026 and stood 32% below peak in June 2026. The CEE category accounts for 91% of the decline: chip-sector construction is falling as fabs finish and hand off to production, while ex-CEE construction is roughly flat.[1]

The South’s share of U.S. manufacturing construction reached 50–53% in 2024–2025, up from roughly 38% in the 1990s; the West took 25%, the Midwest 21–22%, and the Northeast 2.9%.[2]

Manufacturing Job Growth Has Been Disappointing vs. Expectations

Line chart indexing manufacturing construction, employment, and output to December 2019 equals 100. Construction rises to a peak of 309 in September 2024 and stands at 211 in June 2026, while employment sits at 98.8 and output at 99.7, both essentially flat.

Manufacturing Construction vs. Employment vs. Output, 1993–2026: monthly, indexed to December 2019 = 100.[1][3][5] | Chart: CRE42

Manufacturing employment remained flat despite the recent construction manufacturing boom. The manufacturing construction index remained elevated at 211 in June 2026 (index = 100 in December 2019; peak 309 in September 2024). Manufacturing employment stood at 98.8 and manufacturing output at 99.7, both basically flat vs. the 2019 index of 100. The factories went up; the jobs and the production, so far, did not.[1][3][5]

Total manufacturing employment in June 2026 is roughly where it stood in 2011, and 29% below its 1990 level.[3]

Dual axis line chart from 1993 to 2026 with the legend below the chart. Chip sector construction indexed to December 2019 on the left axis spikes from roughly 100 to over 1,300 by 2024 then falls to about 570. On the right axis, computer and electronic products employment drifts down to 95 while production rises to 126.

Chip-Sector Construction vs. Employment vs. Production: monthly, indexed to December 2019 = 100. Construction: Census C30 CEE category. Employment and production: computer & electronic products (NAICS 334).[1][4][5] | Chart: CRE42

Computer and electronic products (NAICS 334) employment fell 48,000 from December 2019 (1,043,000) to June 2026 (995,000), even as chip-sector construction ran to 13x its pre-pandemic rate. NAICS 334 employs half as many people as it did in 1990.[4]

NAICS 334 industrial production is up 26% since December 2019 while sector employment is down 5%.[5]

Horizontal bar chart of announced investment per direct job for selected projects. Samsung Taylor Texas leads at 18.5 million dollars per job, followed by TSMC Arizona at 13.8 million and a hyperscale data center reference at 13.3 million. Battery plants run 1 to 2.7 million, a traditional auto plant 500 thousand, and a typical distribution center 150 thousand.

Announced Investment per Direct Job, Selected Projects: company and state announcements; announced totals include production equipment, not just buildings; * = industry reference point, not a specific announcement. Figures pending verification against primary announcements.[6] | Chart: CRE42

Semiconductor fabrication is capital intensive but not labor intensive. Samsung’s expanded Taylor, TX commitment implies $18.5 million of investment per announced direct job, TSMC Arizona $13.8 million, and Micron New York $11.1 million. A traditional auto assembly plant historically ran about $500,000 per job and a regional distribution center about $150,000.[6]

Battery plants are the labor-intensive exception among the boom projects. Announced battery projects (Panasonic De Soto, BlueOval SK, Hyundai Metaplant) cluster near $0.9–1.2 million per job, roughly a tenth of the semiconductor figure. Toyota’s Liberty, NC battery complex runs higher at $2.7 million.[6]

Line chart from 1990 to 2026 indexing real output as solid lines and employment as dashed lines for total manufacturing, motor vehicles and parts, and computer and electronic products. All output lines rise while all employment lines fall or stay flat. Computer and electronic output, on the right axis, rises to roughly 33 times its 1990 level.

Output vs. Employment by Segment, 1990–2026: indexed, 1990 = 100; solid = real output, dashed = jobs; computer/electronic output on right axis. 2026 = Jan–Jun average.[3][5] | Chart: CRE42

Manufacturing output is up two-thirds since 1990 with 29% fewer workers. Total real manufacturing output stands at 167 (1990 = 100) in 2026 against employment at 71. The gap between the two lines is productivity, and it has widened in every cycle.[3][5]

Cars: more than twice the output, fewer workers. Motor vehicles and parts output is up 118% since 1990; employment in the sector is down 9%.[3][5]

Chips: 33x the output, half the workers. Computer and electronic products output is roughly 33 times its 1990 level on about half the 1990 workforce. A caveat belongs next to that figure: the official index is heavily quality-adjusted, so it measures computing power delivered more than units through the door (see Methodology).[4][5]

Line chart of annual payroll as a share of value added by manufacturing industry from 2012 to 2021. Apparel is highest around 42 to 47 percent, battery manufacturing rises from 26 to 41 percent, semiconductors and computer electronics run 35 to 39 percent, all manufacturing is flat near 26 percent, motor vehicles near 18 to 25 percent, pharma near 15 percent, and petroleum lowest at 7 to 19 percent.

Payroll as a Share of Manufacturing Value Added, 2012–2021: annual payroll ÷ value added. 2012 and 2017 are Economic Census years; 2013–2016 and 2018–2021 are Annual Survey of Manufactures years.[8] | Chart: CRE42

Line chart of value added per employee by industry from 2012 to 2021 in nominal thousands of dollars. Motor vehicle assembly runs 300 to 415 thousand, semiconductor devices around 270 to 330 thousand, all manufacturing and computer electronics around 200 to 250 thousand, battery manufacturing 130 to 200 thousand, and apparel 60 to 85 thousand.

Value Added per Employee by Industry, 2012–2021: nominal $ thousands per employee.[8] | Chart: CRE42

Labor’s claim on manufacturing value added is stable overall, and lowest where the boom money went. Across all manufacturing, payroll has held near 26% of value added for a decade (26.5% in 2021). In the capital-intensive industries the share is far lower: petroleum 8%, pharmaceuticals 15%. In semiconductors, payroll is 35% of value added but production-worker wages are only 12%; most of the wage bill goes to engineers, not the factory floor.[7]

A semiconductor employee generates $327,000 of value added a year; a battery employee $163,000. 2021 value added per employee: semiconductor devices $327K, motor vehicle assembly $324K, all manufacturing $241K, battery manufacturing $163K, apparel $83K. High value added per worker is precisely what makes an industry a weak job creator per dollar invested.[7]

Battery manufacturing pays out an unusually high share of its value added as wages, and the share rose as investment poured in. Battery payroll went from 26% of value added in 2012 to 41% in 2021, the highest of any boom segment and second only to apparel among the industries shown. The one boom industry that hires heavily is also the one where owners keep the least.[8]

Economy-wide, manufacturing labor’s share of output has fallen for decades. The BLS manufacturing labor-share index fell from 129 in 1987 to a trough of 84 in 2011 and stood at 93 in 2022, the latest published year. The ASM figures above are the industry-level cross-section of that long slide.[9]

Line chart titled Battery Plant Jobs Outpace Other Advanced Manufacturing, showing employment indexed to 2019 equals 100 for three boom segments from 2016 to 2026. Battery manufacturing rises from 69 to 148. Computer and electronic products and motor vehicles and parts both sit near 96 in 2026, below their 2019 levels.

Employment, 2016–2026, annual average indexed to 2019 = 100. 2026* = Jan–Jun average. Battery manufacturing (NAICS 33591), computer/electronic (334), motor vehicles & parts.[10] | Chart: CRE42

Essentially all of the boom’s net new manufacturing jobs are battery jobs. Battery manufacturing employment rose from 28,000 (2016) to 61,000 (first half 2026), up 48% from 2019. Over the same period computer/electronic employment fell to 96 (2019 = 100) and motor vehicles & parts to 96. Net job creation across the boom’s target segments to date is roughly the 20,000–30,000 battery jobs added since 2019.[10]

Data Centers: Fastest Growing Industrial Sector, NOT Counted as Manufacturing

Line chart from 2013 to 2026 of monthly construction spending. Chip sector manufacturing construction in red rises to about 125 billion dollars in 2024 then falls to 53 billion. Data center construction in navy rises continuously to 68 billion dollars, crossing above the chip line in early 2026.

Data Center vs. Chip-Sector Manufacturing Construction, 2013–2026: monthly SAAR, nominal $ billions, buildings only. Data centers are classified by Census as office construction and appear in no manufacturing statistic.[1] | Chart: CRE42

Data Centers

Global data center capital spending is expected to approach $1T in 2026, on its way to a forecast $1.7T by 2030; the four largest U.S. hyperscalers alone have guided to roughly $700B of 2026 capital spending. Most of that total is servers and IT equipment rather than buildings; the $68B construction line above is the U.S. building shell only (see Methodology).[11]
Data centers do not require a large permanent employee base: a hyperscale campus generates roughly 75 permanent jobs per $1 billion invested, about the same as a leading-edge fab and one-ninetieth of a distribution center.[6]
None of it appears in manufacturing statistics: Census classifies data centers under office construction. The capital-over-labor pattern of this page is repeating one category over, at larger scale. See the Data Centers section for capacity, power, and demand detail.

What to Watch For in 2026 and Beyond

Sources to Track the Manufacturing Construction Boom in 2026:

Source	Report or Series	Frequency	Notes
U.S. Census Bureau	Construction Spending (C30), manufacturing and office/data center lines	Monthly, ~1st business day	The boom's pulse; CEE vs. ex-CEE split and the data-center line
Clean Investment Monitor	Quarterly U.S. clean investment update	Quarterly	Battery and clean-tech facility investment, announcements, cancellations
Bureau of Labor Statistics	CES employment: NAICS 334 and 33591	Monthly	Whether fab ramp-ups and battery plants show up as jobs
Federal Reserve	G.17 Industrial Production, NAICS 334 and motor vehicles	Monthly	Whether the finished fabs show up as output
CHIPS Program Office	Award and milestone announcements	Ongoing	Disbursement pace against announced awards
Reshoring Initiative	Reshoring + FDI job announcements	Annual, with quarterly updates	Announced jobs (244K in 2024) vs. realized hiring; 2025 stalled on tariff uncertainty

Footnotes

U.S. Census Bureau, Construction Spending (C30), Value of Private Construction Put in Place, seasonally adjusted annual rate; manufacturing total, computer/electronic/electrical, and office/data center lines. August 3, 2026 release, retrieved August 2026. ↩
U.S. Census Bureau, Construction Spending (C30), manufacturing construction by Census region, annual through 2025. Retrieved August 2026. ↩
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Employment Statistics, total manufacturing employment (MANEMP via FRED), through June 2026. ↩
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Employment Statistics, computer & electronic products, NAICS 334 (CES3133400001 via FRED), through June 2026. ↩
Federal Reserve Board, G.17 Industrial Production: total manufacturing (IPMAN), computer & electronic products (IPG334S), motor vehicles & parts (IPG3361T3S), via FRED, through June 2026. Real (quality-adjusted quantity) indexes. ↩
Company and state press announcements, 2022–2025 (Samsung/Texas; TSMC March 2025 expansion; Micron New York; Intel Ohio; Toyota North Carolina; Ford/SK BlueOval SK; Panasonic/Kansas; Hyundai/Georgia), plus industry reference points for a traditional auto assembly plant, regional distribution center, and hyperscale data center campus. All figures pending verification against primary announcements before deploy. ↩
U.S. Census Bureau, Annual Survey of Manufactures, 2021 (ASM Benchmark 2022, table AM2231GS1): payroll, production-worker wages, value added, and employment by NAICS industry. ↩
U.S. Census Bureau, Annual Survey of Manufactures (2013–2016, 2018–2021) and Economic Census (2012, 2017), payroll and value added by NAICS industry, via Census API. Retrieved August 2026. ↩
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Productivity and Costs, manufacturing sector labor share index, 1987–2022 (PRS30006173). ↩
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Employment Statistics, battery manufacturing, NAICS 33591 (CES3133591001), computer & electronic products (334), and motor vehicles & parts, through June 2026. ↩
Dell'Oro Group, "AI Boom Drives Data Center Capex to $1.7 Trillion by 2030," press release, 2026: global data center capex "expected to approach $1 trillion in 2026," with accelerated servers approximately two-thirds of total infrastructure spending by 2030. Hyperscaler 2026 guidance: Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, and Meta quarterly earnings releases, Q4 2025–Q1 2026 (roughly $700 billion combined). These capex figures are worldwide and include servers and IT equipment; they are not comparable to the Census C30 U.S. construction line. ↩

Sources

U.S. Census Bureau, Construction Spending (C30), Value of Private Construction Put in Place, seasonally adjusted annual rate, August 3, 2026 release (census.gov/construction/c30): manufacturing total, computer/electronic/electrical, office/data center, and regional detail. Retrieved August 2026.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Employment Statistics via FRED: manufacturing total (MANEMP), computer & electronic products (CES3133400001), battery manufacturing (CES3133591001), motor vehicles & parts (CES3133600101), and subsector series. Retrieved August 2026.
Federal Reserve Board, G.17 Industrial Production via FRED: total manufacturing (IPMAN), computer & electronic products (IPG334S), motor vehicles & parts (IPG3361T3S), and segment series. Real (quality-adjusted quantity) indexes. Retrieved August 2026.
U.S. Census Bureau, Annual Survey of Manufactures and Economic Census: payroll, production-worker wages, value added, and employment by NAICS industry, 2012–2021 (ASM Benchmark 2022 table AM2231GS1; timeseries/asm/industry and ecnbasic APIs). Retrieved August 2026.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Productivity and Costs: manufacturing sector labor share index, 1987–2022 (PRS30006173). Retrieved August 2026.
Rhodium Group and MIT CEEPR, Clean Investment Monitor, U.S. Q1 2026 Update.
Company and state announcements for project investment and job figures: Samsung/State of Texas; TSMC (March 2025 expansion); Micron New York fact sheet; Intel Ohio; Toyota North Carolina; Ford/SK BlueOval SK; Panasonic/State of Kansas; Hyundai/Georgia Department of Economic Development, 2022–2025. Figures pending verification against primary announcements before deploy.
Reshoring Initiative, 2024 Data Report and 1Q2025 update (reshorenow.org).
Dell'Oro Group, "AI Boom Drives Data Center Capex to $1.7 Trillion by 2030," press release, 2026 (delloro.com); Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, and Meta earnings releases and capital-expenditure guidance, Q4 2025–Q1 2026.

Methodology & Data Notes

What "CEE" Covers

The Census C30 computer/electronic/electrical category covers semiconductor fabs, battery plants, solar module plants (solar PV manufacturing is NAICS 334413, inside computer/electronic), and electrical equipment. EV assembly plants are transportation equipment, not CEE. This page therefore describes CEE as "chips, batteries and solar" rather than chips alone. "Advanced manufacturing" has no official statistical definition; each chart on this page states the exact series it uses.

Nominal Dollars

All construction figures are nominal. Construction costs rose sharply in 2021–2023, so the nominal 3.15x rise is roughly a doubling in real terms. Value added per employee is also nominal; flat lines on that chart are mild real declines.

The Hedonic Caveat on Chip Output

G.17 industrial production indexes are real quantity indexes. For computer and electronic products the long-run index is heavily quality-adjusted: a chip with 10x the computing power counts as roughly 10x the output. The 33x rise since 1990 measures computing power delivered, not units or factory headcount requirements, which is part of why output can rise 33x while employment halves (Houseman et al. critique). Short-window comparisons (the +26% since December 2019) are less affected.

ASM Vintage and Concepts

The latest Annual Survey of Manufactures industry data is 2021, before the boom's plants came online; the payroll-share and value-added charts describe the starting conditions of the boom, not its aftermath. Payroll excludes benefits; value added minus payroll is not pure profit (it also covers benefits, depreciation, taxes, and overhead). 2012 and 2017 are full Economic Census years; ASM years are samples benchmarked to them, so small level breaks are possible at the seams. The BLS labor-share index (compensation share of sectoral output, all manufacturing) is a related but different measure from the ASM payroll/value-added ratio.

Battery Employment: Two Sources

BLS CES battery employment (~42,000 in 2021) exceeds the ASM establishment count (~28,000 in 2021) because the surveys differ in scope and method. Trend statements on this page use CES; the payroll-share and value-added figures use ASM.

Announced Project Figures

Investment-per-job figures are company and state press announcements, not audited outcomes. Announced totals often span decades (Micron's $100 billion is a 20+ year program), and direct-job counts exclude construction and supplier employment. The reference points (auto plant, distribution center, data center) are industry rules of thumb for context. All project figures are flagged for verification against primary announcements before this page deploys.

Construction vs. Total Factory Investment

Every construction figure on this page is Census C30 construction put-in-place: buildings, structures, and site work. Production machinery (fab tools, stamping lines, cell assembly equipment) is not counted in any construction statistic. In the 2021 Annual Survey of Manufactures, machinery was 77.8% of total manufacturing capital expenditures and buildings 22.2%, with the boom industries even more machinery-heavy: semiconductor devices 76.8%, motor vehicle assembly 74.0%, battery manufacturing 95.4%. Dividing construction by the buildings share (a roughly 4.5x multiplier) gives the implied-total-investment approximations shown on the headline chart. They are approximations: ASM ratios describe operating establishments' annual capex, not projects under construction, and the boom mix skews more machinery-intensive than the all-manufacturing average, so the implied totals are conservative if anything. Announced project totals (the investment-per-job chart) already include equipment, which is why per-job figures are far higher than construction alone would imply.

Data-Center Construction vs. Data-Center Capex

The $68 billion data-center line on this page is Census C30 construction put-in-place: the U.S. building shell and site work only, excluding servers, GPUs, and installed IT and power equipment. Industry "data center capex" figures (approaching $1 trillion globally in 2026 per Dell'Oro) are worldwide and equipment-dominated: accelerated servers alone are roughly two-thirds of the total. Building construction is typically on the order of 15–20% of a data-center project's all-in cost, so the two measures differ by more than 10x while both being accurate. They are different denominators, not conflicting estimates.

2026 Partial Year and Vintage

2026 figures cover January through June. Monthly series are shown through June 2026 as published; annual-average points for 2026 are flagged "2026*" and drawn dashed. Census C30 history is revised in each release; this page uses the August 3, 2026 vintage, which differs about 0.5% from earlier vintages.