Manufacturing Minnesota Style

Minnesota’s manufacturing industries directly and indirectly contributed an estimated $87 billion to Minnesota’s economy and about 41 percent of private-sector jobs in 2003, according to a new analysis released by the Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED).
These estimates constitute the most current thumbnail sketch of the state’s manufacturing sector where employment is dominated by computer and electronics, food manufacturing and fabricated metal products manufacturers.

Manufacturers directly employed nearly 345,000 workers, about 16 percent of the private-sector workforce. In addition, the industry indirectly spawned another 567,000 jobs. Among the other findings:

*Manufacturing employees were paid 20 percent more than the average private-sector employee in 2003, earning an average $46,599, an increase of 23 percent since 1998.

*Minnesota’s manufactured exports hit $10.5 billion in 2003 with computers and electronics as the top export industry.

*Seven of the 19 Minnesota companies on the Fortune 500 list are primarily manufacturing-related businesses.

A new fact sheet containing these and other highlights of the manufacturing sector is now available online at http://www.deed.state.mn.us/facts/PDFs/ManufSector.pdf