Manufacturing Establishments by Industry: 2026 Data Report

What Counts as a Manufacturing Establishment?

BLS QCEW counts an establishment as an economic unit, usually a single physical location, where business is conducted or where services or industrial operations are performed. The BLS QCEW handbook explains that QCEW data come from unemployment insurance tax reports, which makes the program one of the most detailed sources for employment, wages, and establishments in the United States.

That matters because an establishment is not the same as a company. A manufacturer with five plants can appear as five establishments. A large corporate parent can own dozens of establishments across multiple NAICS industries. A small machine shop, bakery, brewery, or cabinet shop may be one establishment. For market sizing, establishment count is often closer to the number of locations you can sell to than company count is.

The North American Industry Classification System groups manufacturing in NAICS 31-33. The 21 three-digit subsectors below are the practical starting point for sales territories, economic development research, supplier lists, and workforce planning. They show whether a market is built around many smaller shops, a smaller number of capital-heavy plants, or a mix of both.

Manufacturing Establishments Ranked by Industry

Fabricated metal product manufacturing has the largest establishment count in the BLS file, with 60,906 establishments. Food manufacturing ranks second with 42,010 establishments. Miscellaneous manufacturing ranks third with 37,346 establishments. Those three industries alone account for 35.3% of the major-subsector establishment universe in this dataset.

The full ranking is below. The table uses private-sector BLS QCEW data for the 2024 annual average. Wages are total annual wages in billions. Growth columns compare 2024 with 2023 in the BLS over-the-year fields.

The ranking shows a split that shows up constantly in industrial sales. Fabricated metals, food, miscellaneous manufacturing, machinery, and printing have a large number of reachable locations. Transportation equipment has fewer establishments than several sectors, but it has 1,770,605 employees and $165.1 billion in annual wages. Electronics has 25,968 establishments but pays the highest annual pay in this ranking at $153,352.

Where Manufacturing Locations Are Concentrated

The top five industries by establishment count are fabricated metals, food, miscellaneous manufacturing, machinery, and printing. Together, they represent 202,385 establishments, or 51.0% of the total in this report. That is why a broad manufacturing prospect list often over-represents machine shops, metal fabricators, food processors, specialty product makers, and print-related plants unless the list is filtered carefully.

Census gives another useful view. County Business Patterns is often used when researchers need establishment counts by geography and employment-size band, while the Annual Survey of Manufactures is stronger for operating measures such as shipments, materials, payroll, and capital expenditures. For this page, BLS QCEW is the main source because it places establishments, jobs, wages, weekly wage, and annual pay in one consistent national file.

Employment and Wage Benchmarks by Manufacturing Industry

The largest establishment count is not always the largest employment base. Food manufacturing has 1,766,665 employees across 42,010 establishments. Transportation equipment has 1,770,605 employees across only 18,712 establishments. Fabricated metals has the most locations but ranks third for employment, with 1,437,729 employees.

Pay levels also separate the market. Computer and electronic product manufacturing averages $153,352 in annual pay. Petroleum and coal products averages $141,329. Chemical manufacturing averages $118,180. Those high-pay industries tend to have capital-heavy facilities, specialized labor, compliance pressure, engineering depth, and expensive downtime.

Fastest-Growing Manufacturing Establishment Categories

The BLS over-the-year fields show where establishment counts expanded in 2024. Electrical equipment and appliance manufacturing had the fastest establishment growth in this set at 5.6%. Transportation equipment grew 3.8%. Food and chemical manufacturing both grew 3.2%. Petroleum and coal products grew 2.7%.

Growth does not always mean a clean sales opportunity. A sector can add establishments while total employment is flat or down. Electronics grew establishments 2.5% while employment fell 6.7%. Apparel establishments fell 3.1% and employment fell 6.9%. Treat establishment growth as a starting signal, then check shipments, value added, hiring, imports, and local conditions before making a market bet.

How to Use Manufacturing Establishment Counts

Establishment data is practical because it answers a simple question: how many locations might buy, hire, expand, shut down, need repairs, need software, or need suppliers? A territory with many fabricated metal shops behaves differently from a territory built around fewer but larger transportation equipment plants. The first may reward broad local SEO, repeatable quoting pages, and a high-volume outreach list. The second may need named-account research, proof around compliance, long sales cycles, and plant-specific stakeholder mapping.

The National Association of Manufacturers reports national manufacturing facts such as manufacturing value added, employment, average earnings, exports, and the number of manufacturers. BEA GDP by industry accounts can show which subsectors contribute the most value added. Census ASM can show shipments, materials, inventories, and capital expenditures. The establishment table on this page fills a different job: it shows the location count behind the market.

For lead generation, the biggest mistake is treating all manufacturing categories as equal. A landing page for fabricated metal buyers should not read like a page for beverage plants. A campaign aimed at electronics manufacturers should account for higher wages, engineering depth, and a smaller but higher-value account universe. A campaign aimed at food manufacturers should account for plant sanitation, throughput, cold chain issues, regulatory pressure, and a much larger employee base.

Small business definitions add one more layer. The SBA table of size standards sets size thresholds by NAICS code, often using employee counts for manufacturing industries. That means a plant that looks large in one market can still be a small business under federal standards. If you sell to owners, GMs, plant managers, or procurement teams, combine BLS establishment counts with SBA thresholds and Census size-band data before deciding how to segment the list.

Planning Notes by Manufacturing Sector

Use this dataset as a map of the manufacturing sector before you build a prospect list. Establishments are the location layer. Employment is the workforce layer. Wages are the economic intensity layer. Output and value added, which are measured in BEA GDP by industry accounts, add the production layer. When those layers point in the same direction, you usually have a stronger market than establishment count alone suggests.

Fabricated metal product manufacturing is the clearest example. It has the highest number of establishments in this report at 60,906, but the average location is usually much smaller than a transportation equipment plant. That makes fabricated metals a good fit for local search, process-specific pages, quote forms, capability pages, and repeatable proof around lead time, tolerances, secondary operations, coatings, and inspection. A shop owner searching for a supplier or service partner does not want a generic page about manufacturing companies. They want to know if you understand their process.

Food manufacturing is different. It ranks second by establishments with 42,010 locations and ranks near the top for manufacturing employment with 1,766,665 jobs. The buying problem often involves uptime, sanitation, safety, packaging, refrigeration, traceability, labor availability, and throughput. If you serve food plants, market size should not be judged only by the number of establishments. The employee base, wage bill, and regulatory burden make the sector bigger than the location count suggests.

Transportation equipment is the opposite pattern. It has 18,712 establishments, which puts it eighth by number of establishments, but it has the largest employment total in this table at 1,770,605. Automotive, aerospace, shipbuilding, rail, trailers, and parts suppliers often involve longer qualification cycles, supplier portals, engineering reviews, quality documentation, and account-based selling. A single plant can be worth more than hundreds of small prospects if your offer affects downtime, quality, compliance, tooling, or production capacity.

Computer and electronic product manufacturing has another pattern. It has 25,968 establishments, but the highest pay level in the table at $153,352 in average annual pay. That wage level is a useful signal. High-pay industries usually have more engineers, more technical stakeholders, tighter documentation demands, and more expensive hiring mistakes. If you sell software, automation, testing equipment, cleanroom services, metrology, cybersecurity, or technical staffing, this sector deserves a deeper look even when the location count is not the largest.

Chemical manufacturing shows why statistics can be misleading without context. It has 25,257 establishments and 893,669 employees, but average annual pay is $118,180. Many plants have hazardous materials, process safety requirements, environmental reporting, and specialized equipment. For suppliers, the number of establishments is only the opening screen. Qualification, insurance, safety record, and proof matter before a buyer will engage.

Printing, apparel, textile mills, textile product mills, and leather show a more cautious story. Printing has 27,800 establishments, but employment fell 3.7%. Apparel establishments fell 3.1% and jobs fell 6.9%. Textile mills lost 5.8% of employment. These sectors can still be profitable niches, but the trend says to target carefully. Focus on the submarkets with clear demand, modern equipment, specialty positioning, or reshoring tailwinds.

Electrical equipment and appliance manufacturing is worth watching because the number of establishments grew 5.6%, the fastest rate in this report. The 2025 and 2026 planning question is whether that location growth turns into durable demand for suppliers, distributors, machine builders, controls vendors, battery-related services, workforce partners, and local industrial contractors. The establishment signal alone does not prove a boom, but it is a strong reason to look closer.

State context matters too. Pennsylvania manufacturing, Ohio manufacturing, Michigan manufacturing, Texas manufacturing, California manufacturing, and North Carolina manufacturing all have different mixes of NAICS industries. A state can have many establishments because it has a deep base of small shops, or it can have fewer locations with large payrolls and high output. If you are building territory plans, pair this national table with state QCEW files from BLS downloadable data and establishment-size detail from Census County Business Patterns.

Largest manufacturing companies lists can be useful for named accounts, but they do not show the middle of the market. The middle is where most industrial lead generation work happens. Many buyers are plant managers, quality managers, maintenance leaders, operations directors, owners, and engineers at locations that will never appear on a ranking of the largest manufacturing companies. Establishment data helps you find that middle. It also helps you avoid wasting sales time in sectors where the account universe is too small for your price point.

For an employer, the same data helps explain recruiting pressure. A sector with many establishments and declining employment may still have hard-to-fill roles because experienced workers are spread across thousands of smaller plants. A sector with fewer plants and high wages may have intense competition for engineers, maintenance technicians, quality specialists, and production supervisors. Worker availability, average pay, and local concentration should sit beside establishment counts in any hiring plan.

The practical takeaway is simple. Do not build manufacturing campaigns around a single average. Segment by industry, location count, employment, pay, growth, and buyer problem. The data for the manufacturing sector is good enough to do that work before you spend money on ads, lists, trade shows, recruiters, or content.

For U.S. market research, the Bureau of Labor Statistics file is also useful because it can be pulled at a finer NAICS level when you need a more specific sample. You can estimate the number of manufacturing jobs tied to a domestic facility type, compare geographic concentration by state or county, and decide whether a local market has enough employers to support a sales campaign. At a deeper NAICS level, the description for fabricated metal product manufacturing includes establishments engaged in the mechanical, physical, or chemical transformation of materials into new products. That definition is why job shops, component plants, and specialty producers sit together in the manufacturing establishment universe.

Innovation markets should be judged the same way. A robotics vendor, ERP consultant, automation integrator, inspection lab, or workforce training provider may care less about the largest count and more about the mix of high-wage sectors, technical workers, capital equipment, quality systems, and facilities with recurring production problems. Establishment statistics help narrow the field before a team spends weeks researching individual manufacturing companies.

For a quick overview, look at distribution, percentage change, and gross payroll together. A factory market with a high number of jobs but a low number of establishments may require named-account selling. A market with many smaller employers may require search pages, directory cleanup, and local proof. Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Texas can all rank well in manufacturing, but the number of jobs and the skilled workforce profile can differ sharply by industry. Historical comparisons back to 2020 can also show whether a sector recovered from pandemic disruption or kept shrinking in nonfarm payroll datasets.

Manufacturing Establishments FAQ

Methodology

This report uses the BLS QCEW 2024 annual national CSV for area US000. Rows were filtered to private ownership, all establishment sizes, and three-digit manufacturing NAICS industries from 311 through 339. The metrics used are annual average establishments, annual average employment level, total annual wages, annual average weekly wage, average annual pay, over-the-year establishment percent change, and over-the-year employment percent change.

Figures are rounded only for presentation. Establishment counts and employment counts are shown as whole numbers. Total annual wages are shown in billions. Percentages are shown to one decimal place. The table is not a count of parent companies, legal entities, or brands. It is a count of establishments in the BLS QCEW file.

The source can be refreshed annually as BLS publishes new QCEW annual files. For a business-friendly chart or a ten-year trend line, use the same filters at the two-digit and three-digit NAICS levels, then compare the result against local markets such as Houston, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh. That keeps the analysis accessible without mixing company-count data with location-count data, and it gives capital investment decisions a cleaner starting point.

Use this page with care when comparing it against Census or private databases. Census County Business Patterns, Census ASM, BLS QCEW, commercial plant databases, and state economic development lists use different coverage rules, update schedules, and industry coding methods. When the goal is national subsector comparison, QCEW is a strong base because the variables sit in one source and follow one classification structure.

Cite This Manufacturing Establishments Resource

If you cite individual figures, link directly to the BLS QCEW CSV when possible and link to this page when you want to cite the cleaned ranking, comparisons, or interpretation.

Sources