Manufacturers Large and Small Lead Hiring Within the Industry

This week we fielded a question about manufacturing firms by class size in Oregon. We took a look at what firms are hiring: large or small? As it turns out, the answer is "both!" Data on new hires by firm size in manufacturing show that the state's largest firms (those with 500+ employees) and the smallest (those with fewer than 20 employees) are averaging the largest number of new hires. Since the beginning of 2012, the average number of new hires for Oregon's largest manufacturing firms has been hovering between 4,000 and 4,500. During that same period of time, the quarterly average for the smallest manufacturers ranged from 3,400 to 3,800. There are so many more small manufacturing firms than large ones that while the total number of hires is roughly similar, the average large firm hires 100 times as many workers per quarter than the average small firm. In the first quarter of 2013, Oregon had almost 3,600 firms with less than 20 employees, compared with 44 firms that employed 500 or more. That translates to an average of 1 hire per firm for the smallest category, and an average of 100 hires per firm in the largest class size. Another interesting point: the second-largest firm class size (250-499 employees) consistently has the smallest number of new hires. The number of firms in this category is similar to the total in the 500+ group, but the new hire counts fall far below those for the largest firms. Anyone interested in more information about employment and firm size, or employment by gender or age, can find more information through the Census Bureau's Quarterly Workforce Indicators Explorer.