Phoenix Trendlines

Tuesday, October 27, 2026·Charts every weekday

Phoenix-metro manufacturing jobs, September 2026

economy
employment
Published

October 21, 2026

Manufacturing payroll employment in the Phoenix metro, thousands of jobs, NSA, 1990 to September 2026: from 136k to a peak of 168k in June 1998, now 148k.

Manufacturing as a percent of all Phoenix-metro payroll jobs, NSA, 1990 to September 2026: from 13.7% to 6.0%, with a high of 13.8% in July 1990.

Phoenix-metro manufacturers employed 147,500 people in September 2026, down 0.3% from a year earlier — 6.0% of all payroll jobs in the metro. The sector peaked at 168,100 jobs in June 1998 and has shed roughly 12% of that since.

The second chart is the share: it went from 13.7% in January 1990 to 6.0% now.

Numerator and denominator of the share come from the same BLS release for the same metro, so it stays consistent when the levels are revised; it is computed at read time, never stored.

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, State & Area Employment, manufacturing and total nonfarm payrolls, Phoenix–Mesa–Chandler MSA, not seasonally adjusted, via FRED. The share is derived at read time. Auto-generated each build.