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Texas and Houston push back on manufacturing’s hiring slump: Q1 Job and Wage Update
In October last year we wondered if storm clouds were gathering despite manufacturing’s incredible 10-year run in the US, Texas, and Houston.
Our quarterly report on manufacturing employment, wages, and GDP confirm that job growth has stalled or gone negative, even as wage and GDP gains signal that overall productivity continues to improve.
On the bright side, Texas and Houston manufacturing are proving resilient, avoiding significant downturns that are trending across the US. But there’s cause for concern.
Here are numbers and notes.
Notes
Manufacturing’s decade-or-so comeback peaked in early 2023, at 12,903,000 jobs, nearly surpassing 13 million jobs for the first time in a generation. Parsing all the available data and revisions, total US manufacturing employment coming out of 2025 is 12,573,207 jobs, or -1% year-over-year.
Is it a huge loss? Not yet. But it’s trending the wrong direction and down about 400,000 jobs from January 2023.
A contentious election year seemed to stop job-growth cold, and manufacturing’s employment setbacks have accelerated during the Trump administration’s second-term, owing by many accounts (including ours) to uncertainty relating to US global trade policy.
Texas and Houston Manufacturing Employment
Texas and Houston continue to stubbornly hold on to hard-won gains, but cracks are showing.
Monthly CES data estimates Texas manufacturing ended 2025 with 969,500 employees, down or -0.3% year-over-year.
As we’ve noted before, Texas has led the nation in net job growth the past five years, and has generally been in the top 10 in the US for per-capita growth. Based on CES data we estimate Texas will fall to 24th in per-capita growth as 2025 employment numbers are finalized.
Houston manufacturing employment is also signaling a slight downtick, as measured by the Greater Houston Partnership in its recent The Economy at a Glance report. GHP estimates 238,100 Houston jobs in December 2025 – a slight rebound from the November total of 237,200 – a number that still represented a -1.1% year-over-year downturn from December 2024 – or a 2,600 net job loss.
Houston’s eight-county metro area continues to set the pace in Texas for manufacturing employment, home to one-in-four Texans who work in manufacturing. Moreover, GHP estimates that Houston’s manufacturing share of GDP is 16.7%, tops among all industries, and nearly double the national average of 9.8%.
Manufacturing mecca, indeed.
The Top 10
Here’s how America’s Top 10 manufacturing employment states fared from December 2024 to December 2025, ranked by year-over-year job performance:
Another visual:
Wage Growth and a GDP Tease
At the same time, US manufacturing wage growth signals a healthy sector and one in transition to higher-paying jobs. Building on steady gains, we anticipate wage growth of 3-4% to be reported through December 2025, or just under $90,000 annually.
Texas manufacturing wages trend above the national average. Building on a 2024 average-wage level of $94,449, and a steady 3-4% increase, we anticipate Texas’ average annual manufacturing wages to land just under $100,000, or $97,775, when final end-of 2025 data is released.
Read more detailed reporting on Texas manufacturing wages here.
We’ll break down manufacturing's industry development and GDP next time.
Bart Taylor is executive director of the Greater Houston Manufacturing Association. Reach him at [email protected].
Special thanks to the Business Research Division, Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado Boulder.
