2026 Manufacturing Industry Outlook | Deloitte Insights

Institute for Supply Management, “Manufacturing PMI^® at 49.1%: September 2025 ISM^® manufacturing PMI^® report,” October 2025.

Deloitte analysis of employment data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

Manufacturing construction spending refers to the dollars invested to build new or expand existing manufacturing facilities.

Institute for Supply Management, “Manufacturing PMI^® at 49.1%: September 2025 ISM^® manufacturing PMI^® report”; Victoria Bloom, “NAM manufacturers’ outlook survey: Third quarter 2025,” National Association of Manufacturers, Sept. 16, 2025.

Victoria Bloom and Mary Frances Holland, “NAM manufacturers’ outlook survey: First quarter 2025,” National Association of Manufacturers, March 6, 2025; Victoria Bloom and Mary Frances Holland, “NAM manufacturers’ outlook survey: Second quarter 2025,” National Association of Manufacturers, May 30, 2025; Bloom, “NAM manufacturers’ outlook survey: Third quarter 2025.” 

Congress-Gov, H.R.1 – One Big Beautiful Bill Act, July 4, 2025. 

Tax Policy Center, “Tracking the Trump tariffs,” Oct. 24, 2025; Gavin Bade, Santiago Pérez, and Vipal Monga, “Trump prepares to start North American trade deal renegotiation,” The Wall Street Journal, Sept. 4, 2025.

The Wall Street Journal, “Where are fed interest rates headed? Here’s what traders think,” accessed Oct. 28, 2025.

Michael Wolf, “United States economic forecast,” Deloitte Insights, Sept. 30, 2025. 

Tim Gaus and Michael Schlotterbeck, “2025 smart manufacturing and operations survey: Navigating challenges to implementation,” Deloitte Insights, May 1, 2025. 

Ibid.

Agentic AI refers to autonomous generative AI agents that possess “agency”—the ability to both act and choose actions to take—which enables them to independently complete complex tasks and achieve human-defined objectives with minimal or no supervision. Multi-agent systems consist of multiple AI agents that complete specific objectives and collaborate to accomplish sophisticated workflows. We refer to agentic AI and multi-agent systems collectively as agentic AI.

Patricia Henderson, Ajay Chavali, Lindsey Berckman, Kate Hardin, and John Morehouse, “From vision to value: A road map for enterprise transformation in manufacturing with agentic AI,” Deloitte Insights, Sept. 23, 2025; Wolf, “United States economic forecast.”

Henderson, Chavali, Berckman, Hardin, and Morehouse, “From vision to value.”

Manufacturing Leadership Council, “Shaping the AI-powered factory of the future,” May 2025. 

John Keilman, “America’s newest auto plant is full of robots. It still needs the human touch,” The Wall Street Journal, Aug. 25, 2025.

Henderson, Chavali, Berckman, Hardin, and Morehouse, “From vision to value.”

Insights gleaned from interviews with Deloitte subject matter specialists. 

Jim Kilpatrick, Kristine Dozier, Kate Hardin, and John Morehouse, “Enhancing supply chain resilience in a new era of policy,” Deloitte Insights, April 1, 2025; Paul Berger, “US manufacturers are stockpiling parts and raw materials,” The Wall Street Journal, accessed Oct. 28, 2025; Thomson Reuters Institute, “2025 tariffs report,” April 17, 2025.

Bloom, “NAM manufacturers’ outlook survey: Third quarter 2025.” 

Tax Policy Center, “Tracking the Trump tariffs.” 

Bade, Pérez, Monga, “Trump prepares to start North American trade deal renegotiation.”

Kilpatrick, Dozier, Hardin, and Morehouse, “Enhancing supply chain resilience in a new era of policy.”

Thomson Reuters Institute, “2025 tariffs report.”

Henderson, Chavali, Berckman, Hardin, and Morehouse, “From vision to value.”

Deloitte defines “should cost” as an estimate of what a part or product should cost, given all the factors that go into producing and distributing it, such as material costs, manufacturing costs, supplier profit, shipping costs, and even added costs due to import tariffs.   

Harry Moser and Kathy Nunnally Anemogiannis, “2025 reshoring survey report,” Reshoring Initiative, June 2, 2025; Note: According to Reshoring Initiative, the survey was conducted from February through April 2025. 

Ibid.

Congress-Gov, H.R.1 – One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

The White House, “White House unveils America’s AI Action Plan,” July 23, 2025.

Felix Salmon and Emily Peck, “Axios markets,” Axios, Aug. 9, 2024.

Deloitte analysis of company reports accessed from AlphaSense.

Ibid.

Semiconductor Industry Association, “State of the US semiconductor industry,” July 11, 2025.

Ibid; Note: As per the cited source, these jobs are likely to be created in construction, facilities related to semiconductor production, and supporting industries.

Congress-Gov, H.R.1 – One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Paul Wellener, Robin Lineberger, Kerry Millar, Oliver B. Bendig, and Aijaz Hussain, “Aftermarket services: Transforming manufacturing in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Deloitte Insights, May 14, 2020.

Henderson, Chavali, Berckman, Hardin, and Morehouse, “From vision to value”; Wolf, “United States economic forecast.”

Ibid.

Gaus and Schlotterbeck, “2025 smart manufacturing and operations survey.”

Deloitte analysis of employment data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

John Coykendall, Kate Hardin, John Morehouse, Victor Reyes, and Gardner Carrick, “Taking charge: Manufacturers support growth with active workforce strategies,” Deloitte Insights, April 3, 2024.

Ibid.

Henderson, Chavali, Berckman, Hardin, and Morehouse, “From vision to value.”

Ibid.

Ibid.