Entering office last January, President Donald Trump pledged to add 25 million jobs and named as a priority revitalizing American manufacturing by bringing back production that had previously been outsourced.
Whether it’s because of the new president’s initiatives, manufacturing is beginning to show new strength both in the Attleboro area and Massachusetts, according to employment numbers and business executives.
At Attleboro’s Larson Tool and Stamping Co., a maker of metal parts, one customer recently brought in a product that previously had been made overseas to be manufactured locally, said vice president Bill Larson. Another company asked Larson to have “Made in USA” stamped on its parts made under contract.
“We’re seeing renewed interest in saying that something is made in America,” Larson said, surmising the reason could be the new administration or other factors.
“People do things for different reasons,” he said.
Larson said his company’s business volume in 2017 has been about the same as the previous year’s, but that an easing of regulation — a major Trump objective — has contributed to a more positive outlook.
“The biggest thing is now you don’t have to get up in the morning and think about the latest regulation,” he said.
At Mansfield’s Lacerta Group in the Cabot Business Park, business has been growing consistently over the past three years.
“It’s crazy,” said partner Mory Lotfi, noting the company has expanded from one to three buildings and is looking to hire a number of workers from engineers to machine specialists.
The company, which employs about 200, designs and manufactures plastic packaging for the medical, prepared foods and consumer products industries. Making tamper-resistant and other types of food containers for supermarket and convenience stores is a growth area.
Lotfi said the company added 30 to 40 workers in the past couple of years.
Much of its growth has resulted from consumer lifestyle changes that have made convenience foods a priority. Lotfi said it would be hard to quantify the impact of any policies initiated by Trump.
Regardless of what or who is responsible, there is at least some hint that the fortunes of manufacturing and manufacturing employment in Massachusetts may be changing.
According to the government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, a total of 245,300 people were employed in manufacturing jobs in October, about 1,000 more than the number in October 2016.
If that number holds, it would be the first year-over-year increase since before Bay State manufacturing began a precipitous decline in the early 2000’s.
Manufacturing employment in the Providence-Fall River-Warwick labor market that includes the Attleboro area has actually declined somewhat in the past several months.
Historically, Massachusetts has played a major role in manufacturing such items as machine parts, electronics, medical devices and other technically sophisticated items. But that has changed as the U.S. has switched from labor-intensive products to more “knowledge-based” processes, James Heintz, an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts, said.
Employment at the Attleboro Texas Instruments plant (now Sensata), that once exceeded 4,000 workers, has since shrunk to less than 1,000.
While Trump has said he wants companies to “hire American and buy American,” economists say it’s probably too early to tell whether the new administration is succeeding.
“It would be hard to attribute any changes to a specific policy that has been enacted,” Heintz said.
Chris Geehren, executive vice president of the Associated Industries of Massachusetts, said that some of the stated objectives of the Trump administration — namely a tax cut and a reduction in regulations — could help drive investment in new plants.
However, he said recent upturn in manufacturing has little to do with changes that have been proposed in the past year.
Looking ahead, Madhavi Venkatesan, an economics professor at Bridgewater State University, said there’s not enough information as yet to judge whether Trump’s advocacy of tariffs and protectionism will benefit manufacturing and the economy as a whole.
“First, the protectionist stance has to be uniform and in support of building the domestic economy as a whole,” she said. “It has to have buy-in from the public so they understand that as prices may increase this will be a short-run impact but in the long-run job creation, stability and employment sustainability will yield a steady-state growth economy.”
Much will also depend, she said, on whether corporations and other primary beneficiaries of Trump tax cuts use the resulting savings to invest in measures that benefit the economy.
