MarketWatch (05/09/12)

Manufacturing jobs are becoming more skilled and heavily reliant on science, technology, engineering, and math fields, according to a new report from the U.S. Commerce Department’s Economics and Statistics Administration, and the compensation reflects this. “The Benefits of Manufacturing Jobs,” an analysis of wages and benefits of manufacturing workers, finds that total hourly compensation for manufacturing workers is 17% higher than for non-manufacturing workers.

In addition to higher compensation for manufacturing jobs, the share of manufacturing workers with more than a high school degree has been steadily increasing, and now more than half of all manufacturing workers have at least some college education. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, manufacturing employment has expanded by nearly 500,000 jobs, or 4%, since January 2010—the strongest cyclical rebound since the wake of the dual recessions in the early 1980s.