Key Industries
Manufacturing, simply put, includes any business that produces a product: any enterprise in which people manipulate raw materials or component parts into finished goods or items destined for further processing. While the whole range of manufacturing is important, from tiny partnerships making a single product to huge multinational corporations with different divisions and product lines, we may think of different subsectors as particularly vital to our state's economy.
We consider several factors to determine key manufacturing subsectors: how many people that subsector employs; how well those employees are paid; how much that subsector contributes to the state GDP; and, to a lesser extent, how many plants around the state are involved in making the products in the subsector. We might have chosen other parameters, e.g., the amount a subsector exports to other states or other countries, how sustainable and environmentally responsible its companies are, some measure of the technology involved, the number of entry-level positions available every year, or how well its supply chain is developed inside the state. However, for the purpose of "Manufacturing Matters," the employment, wage, and overall economic contribution seem to be most relevant.
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This graph displays the four parameters, with different manufacturing subsectors compared according to annual employment, average wages, GDP contribution, and number of units in the state.
Because at the time of this update the most recent wage figures were from 2008, the figure compares each parameter from that year: the position of each bubble relates to the wages and employment, the size of the bubble relates to the GDP contribution, and the color represents the number of manufacturing units.
Based on this data, we see that the food product and chemical manufacturing subsectors were quite dominant in 2008, and may be considered the state's two "key" industries. Food manufacturing not only employed the most people, but also contributed the most to GDP. Chemical manufacturing paid the highest wages and made the second highest GDP contribution.
This graph also shows a cluster of four other subsectors we might consider as additional key industry groups: machinery; plastics and rubber products; motor vehicles and motor vehicle parts; and fabricated metal products. While their GDP contributions are moderate, in 2008 they each combined relatively high wages with relatively large numbers of employees. Because they offer good wages and employ large numbers of people, they may present good opportunities for students graduating from high school and technical schools. In addition, fabricated metal manufacturing also boasts the highest number of plants in the state (even though most of them are quite small).
Comparing sub-sectors within manufacturing
Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis, US Department of Commerce
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Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis, US Department of Commerce
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The food product industry contributes the most to the state manufacturing GDP at just more than 25% of the total. Food products made or processed in North Carolina include pickles, seafood, wine and tobacco products.
Source: US Census Bureau - State & County Facts - North Carolina
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North Carolina is home to 1,384 shops that make fabricated metal products, which is 13.6% of total manufacturing establishments.
Source: Employment Security Commission of North Carolina
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