The USA has lost a lot of manufacturing jobs over the past few decades and for a while the number of jobs was dropping drastically. But it now looks like in the past few years that the losses are leveling off.
Here are the total # of manufacturing jobs in the us (in thousands):
| 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 |
| 17,225 | 17,045 | 16,947 | 16,190 | 15,056 | 14,306 | 14,117 | 14,044 | 13,974 |
From 1998 to 2003 we had a -16.9% decline in manufacturing jobs or -3.7% annually. But then from 2003 to 2006 the decline in manufacturing jobs slowed to -2.3% or -0.7% annually.
Source of information is the Bureau of of Economic Analysis Full-Time and Part-Time Employees by Industry
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