Factory output rose 0.3% in September and plants added 9,000 jobs, but employment is still below January 2025

U.S. manufacturing output rose 0.3% in September and factory payrolls grew by 9,000, the latest federal data show. Both are real gains, and both are modest. The Federal Reserve's industrial production release of Oct. 16 puts third-quarter manufacturing output at a 0.7% annualized pace, and factory employment is still about 21,000 below where it stood in January 2025.

Output: a split by sector

• September: manufacturing output rose 0.3%. Total industrial production rose 0.7%, helped by a 3.5% jump in utilities, which is not manufacturing.
• Third quarter: manufacturing output grew at an annual rate of 0.7%. Durable goods rose at a 3.8% rate, driven in part by a 28.4% gain in semiconductors and related electronic components. Nondurable output fell at a 1.6% rate.
• Autos: output of motor vehicles and parts fell 3.0% in September. Primary metals, machinery and electrical equipment each gained 1% or more.
• Capacity use: the manufacturing operating rate rose 0.1 point to 75.9%, which the Fed says is 2.3 points below its 1972-2025 average.
• Year on year: the manufacturing index was 1.1% above September 2025 in the Fed's table. The September figures are preliminary, so they may change when the Fed publishes its annual revision, which it has scheduled for Nov. 24.

Jobs: up from the low, not back to the start

Using the Bureau of Labor Statistics series for manufacturing employment (CES3000000001, read through the BLS public API on Oct. 22), the sector had 12,652,000 jobs in September, preliminary, up 9,000 from August. That is 72,000 above the December 2025 low of 12,580,000. It is also 21,000 below January 2025 (12,673,000) and 40,000 above September 2025 (12,612,000).

The 72,000 figure is a rise from a trough, not a count of jobs created by new plant announcements, and BLS data do not say whether any added job comes from reshoring. The monthly values come from the BLS data API; we could not load the BLS release page itself, so we have not checked how BLS characterized the September change in its text.

Why the two measures differ

Output is an index of production volume, not sales, investment or headcount. Chips can surge while auto lines slow, and a plant can raise production without hiring. A single month is also volatile: the Fed's August figure was revised in this release to a 0.2% decline. Whether announced factory projects become operating payrolls is a separate question that these two datasets cannot answer, and we have not yet tracked individual projects or contacted companies.

Sources: Federal Reserve G.17, Oct. 16, 2026; BLS Current Employment Statistics (series CES3000000001, preliminary for Aug. and Sept. 2026). This is market information, not investment advice.