Manufacturing in Missouri

The US Census Bureau recently posted several articles celebrating the 12th anniversary of Manufacturing Day. One of those posts included an infographic identifying manufacturing as the fifth-largest employer of the US economy.

That infographic got us thinking, what does manufacturing look like in Missouri? How much of Missouri's workforce is employed in the manufacturing sector? How has that employment changed over time? Fortunately, thanks to our friends at the Missouri Census Data Center, we can answer those questions with County Business Patterns data.

In the 2011 census, counties with a focus on manufacturing are shown to be outside of major cities such as Kansas City, St. Louis, Springfield, and Columbia. Generally, these counties with high manufacturing employment percentages are a county or two away from these major cities. As shown in the map above, counties that are home to more populated cities do not appear to be as reliant on manufacturing. The reason behind this tends to be due to lower overall costs in more rural areas compared to costs in cities. Goods made from these manufacturers are then transported over county lines usually to bigger cities like Kansas City, St. Louis, Springfield, and Columbia. But this was in 2011, what does the 2021 census show? Is it the same? Did anything change?

In 2021, manufacturing seemed to increase one to two counties west from counties with high percentages in the data from 2011. The counties with 5-15% manufacturing employment increased in percentage while counties from 2011 with closer to 30% manufacturing employment decreased to closer to 17.5% total employment dedicated to manufacturing. From looking at the 2021 census data, the geographic trend appears to be that manufacturing in the state has increased in the west. Manufacturing employment in 2021 has increased in the counties that surround high manufacturing employment counties from the 2011 census data.

These maps show us how important manufacturing is and isn't in certain counties in Missouri. Looking between the two maps, there is a visible trend between rurality of counties and the percentage of manufacturing employment. These areas are heavily economically dependent on manufacturing. It is easy to stereotype rural Missouri as empty or unimportant in an increasingly urbanized world. But rural areas in the Show Me State still have a critical role in Missouri's economy with a clear focus on manufacturing. This sector is the fifth biggest employer in the United States. These rural counties have a strong manufacturing workforce that contributes to that statistic. Counties with little to no manufacturing employment have other sectors that account for a majority of the county's employment that are important to our overall economy.