---
title: "Manufacturing Maintenance Skills Gap Statistics: What Holds Up"
slug: manufacturing-maintenance-skills-gap-statistics
url: /topics/guides/manufacturing-maintenance-skills-gap-statistics/index.md
publishedAt: "2026-06-23T18:45:56"
updatedAt: "2026-06-23T18:45:56"
excerpt: "The manufacturing skills gap has a small set of numbers that get quoted everywhere. 2.1 million unfilled jobs. A trillion dollars. An aging workforce on the edge of retirement. They show up in vendor decks, conference keynotes, and roughly every LinkedIn post about hiring techs. Most of them trace back to real studies. The trouble […]"
authors:
  - Reliable Media
---

# Manufacturing Maintenance Skills Gap Statistics: What Holds Up

By [Reliable Media](/authors/reliable-media/index.md)

The manufacturing skills gap has a small set of numbers that get quoted everywhere. 2.1 million unfilled jobs. A trillion dollars. An aging workforce on the edge of retirement. They show up in vendor decks, conference keynotes, and roughly every LinkedIn post about hiring techs.

Most of them trace back to real studies. The trouble is that the numbers get pulled out of context, mixed across study years, and reframed as facts about maintenance specifically when they describe all of manufacturing.

This page sorts the defensible figures from the folklore. Each row gets a Reliable Confidence Score based on how well it traces to a named primary source, whether that source is current, and whether the number actually measures what people claim it measures.

## What these numbers measure, and where they come from

Three bodies of work supply almost every skills-gap statistic in circulation.

The first is the Deloitte and Manufacturing Institute talent study series, which has run roughly every few years for two decades. The Manufacturing Institute is the workforce and education affiliate of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM). These studies combine a survey of manufacturing executives with an economic model that projects future labor supply and demand. The headline shortfall figures (2.4 million, 2.1 million, 1.9 million) come from this model. They’re projections, not counts of jobs sitting open today.

The second is NAM’s quarterly Manufacturers’ Outlook Survey. This measures sentiment: what share of manufacturers rank a given issue as a top concern. It tells you how worried the industry is, not how many positions are vacant. Workforce led that list for years. By 2026 it had slipped behind trade uncertainty, healthcare costs, and input costs, which matters when you cite it.

The third is the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which publishes hard employment counts, ten-year occupation projections, and wage data. This is the cleanest source for anything maintenance-specific, because BLS tracks industrial machinery mechanics, machinery maintenance workers, and millwrights as a defined occupation group.

Keep those three straight and most of the confusion clears up. A projection, a sentiment survey, and an employment count are three different things, and they get quoted as if they’re interchangeable.

## The Big Takeaway

The skills gap is real, but the famous number is outdated.

The figure almost everyone quotes, 2.1 million unfilled jobs by 2030, comes from the 2021 study. The 2024 follow-up put the 2024-to-2033 shortfall closer to 1.9 million and emphasized that the challenge includes both a skills gap and an applicant gap. Manufacturers aren’t only short on trained people. They’re short on applicants of any kind for open roles.

> The 2.1 million figure everyone quotes comes from 2021. The newer study puts the need near 3.8 million through 2033, and roughly three-quarters of it is replacing retirees rather than staffing industry growth.

For maintenance and reliability teams, the cleaner signal isn’t the trillion-dollar headline. It’s the BLS occupation data: more than half a million industrial machinery mechanics, maintenance workers, and millwrights, growing 13 percent through 2034, with about 54,200 openings a year, many of them to replace people who move to other work or leave the labor force. That’s the maintenance hiring demand teams can plan around. It isn’t a count of unfilled jobs.

## Why the numbers vary so much

Four reasons the figures disagree, and none of them mean the data is junk.

Study vintage. The Deloitte and Manufacturing Institute series has produced different headline numbers in 2015 (2 million by 2025), 2018 (2.4 million by 2028), 2021 (2.1 million by 2030), and 2024 (1.9 million by 2033). Each replaced the last. People quote whichever one they first heard.

Projection versus measurement. The shortfall numbers come from an economic model with assumptions about growth, retirement, and participation. Change the assumptions and the output moves. A BLS employment count doesn’t have that wobble, which is part of why it scores higher here.

Skills gap versus applicant gap. The 2024 study made this explicit. Some openings go unfilled because candidates lack the right skills. Others go unfilled because nobody applies at all. Older write-ups blur the two.

Retirements drive most of the need. In the 2024 study, 2.8 million of the 3.8 million projected openings come from retirements, roughly three-quarters, with 760,000 from industry growth and 230,000 from federal investment. That creates a particular risk for maintenance teams, where experience can take years to build and walks out the door at retirement.

## How to use these numbers safely

Cite the 2024 study, not the 2021 one, when you need a current shortfall figure. If you reference 2.1 million, label it as the 2021 projection so a sharp reader doesn’t catch you using a stale number.

For anything maintenance-specific, lean on BLS occupation data rather than the whole-sector shortfall. “About 54,200 openings a year for industrial machinery mechanics, maintenance workers, and millwrights, many from workers transferring out or retiring” is defensible and specific. “2.1 million unfilled maintenance jobs” is neither.

Treat the median-age stat as a modest gap, not a cliff. Around 44 versus 42 is real and worth planning for. It is not the dramatic outlier some posts make it sound like, and the overall workforce is aging too.

Separate sentiment from vacancy. NAM survey results tell you manufacturers are worried. They don’t tell you how many seats are empty. Use each for what it measures.

These numbers don’t sit on their own. A thinner, greener crew tends to lean on reactive work, which feeds [downtime cost](/topics/guides/industrial-downtime-cost-benchmarks) and widens the [planned-versus-reactive spend](/topics/guides/planned-vs-reactive-maintenance-spend-ratios) gap, while [predictive maintenance](/topics/guides/predictive-maintenance-roi-benchmarks-what-the-studies-show) can take some load off stretched techs. If you’re pressure-testing a maintenance budget against that risk, [maintenance cost as a percent of RAV](/topics/guides/maintenance-cost-as-a-percent-of-rav-benchmarks-by-industry) is the companion benchmark.

## Where teams go wrong

The most common mistake is quoting 2.1 million as if it’s a live, present-day count. It’s a 2021 projection for 2030, and a newer study has already revised it.

Close behind is conflating the studies. You’ll see “4 million jobs, 2.1 million unfilled, by 2030” in a single sentence. The 4-ish million comes from 2018 (for 2018 to 2028), the 2.1 million from 2021 (for 2030). Smashing them together produces a number that exists in no study.

Then there’s the “10,000 baby boomers retire every day” line, dropped into maintenance hiring posts as if it describes the trades. It describes the entire U.S. population turning 65, across every industry. It says nothing specific about manufacturing maintenance, and Deloitte itself flagged the figure’s limits years ago.

Last is treating maintenance as if it has its own published shortage number. We didn’t find one in the sources reviewed. Anyone who hands you a precise “maintenance skills gap” figure is almost certainly repackaging a whole-sector projection. The honest move is to size it from BLS occupation data and say so.

## Methodology

Each figure earns a tier based on three tests. Does it trace to a named primary source rather than a citation chain of blogs? Is that source current, or has it been superseded? And does the number measure what it’s being used to claim?

High means the figure comes from a primary source, is current, and is used for what it actually measures. Government employment data and the latest study in a series sit here. Medium means the figure is real but dated, modeled with shifting assumptions, or behind a wall that prevents full verification. Low means the sourcing is thin, the figure is extrapolated from a weak base, or it gets applied to manufacturing when it was never about manufacturing.

A negative finding can score High when it’s stated narrowly. “We found no authoritative national maintenance-specific skills-gap estimate in the sources reviewed” is a confident, defensible claim, even though it isn’t a number.

## The Short Version

The manufacturing skills gap is well documented and the concern is durable, but the headline figures need handling.

Use the 2024 Deloitte and Manufacturing Institute study for a current shortfall: a net need for roughly 3.8 million workers through 2033, about 1.9 million potentially unfilled, with 2.8 million of the total (roughly three-quarters) coming from retirements. Retire the 2021 “2.1 million by 2030” line, or label it as the older projection it is.

For maintenance specifically, skip the whole-sector numbers and cite BLS: more than 538,000 industrial machinery mechanics, maintenance workers, and millwrights, growing 13 percent through 2034, about 54,200 openings a year. We found no separate, authoritative “maintenance skills gap” number in the sources reviewed, and that’s worth saying plainly.

## Sources

* Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute, “Taking charge: Manufacturers support growth with active workforce strategies” (2024 Talent Study), April 2024. [https://www.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/industry/manufacturing-industrial-products/supporting-us-manufacturing-growth-amid-workforce-challenges.html](https://www.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/industry/manufacturing-industrial-products/supporting-us-manufacturing-growth-amid-workforce-challenges.html) Figure 2 (with the 2.8M/760k/230k breakdown) is in the report PDF: [https://themanufacturinginstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Digital_Skills_Report_April_2024.pdf](https://themanufacturinginstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Digital_Skills_Report_April_2024.pdf)
* The Manufacturing Institute, “2.1 Million Manufacturing Jobs Could Go Unfilled by 2030” (2021 study summary). [https://themanufacturinginstitute.org/2-1-million-manufacturing-jobs-could-go-unfilled-by-2030-11330/](https://themanufacturinginstitute.org/2-1-million-manufacturing-jobs-could-go-unfilled-by-2030-11330/)
* Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute, “Understanding the skills gap in the manufacturing industry” (2018 skills gap and future of work study). [https://www.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/industry/manufacturing-industrial-products/manufacturing-skills-gap-study.html](https://www.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/industry/manufacturing-industrial-products/manufacturing-skills-gap-study.html)
* National Association of Manufacturers, Manufacturers’ Outlook Survey, First Quarter 2024 (workforce as top concern). [https://nam.org/2024-first-quarter-manufacturers-outlook-survey/](https://nam.org/2024-first-quarter-manufacturers-outlook-survey/)
* National Association of Manufacturers, Manufacturers’ Outlook Survey, Q1 2026 and Q2 2026 (trade, healthcare, and input costs as the leading concerns). [https://nam.org/2026-first-quarter-manufacturers-outlook-survey/](https://nam.org/2026-first-quarter-manufacturers-outlook-survey/) and [https://nam.org/2026-second-quarter-manufacturers-outlook-survey/](https://nam.org/2026-second-quarter-manufacturers-outlook-survey/)
* S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook: Industrial Machinery Mechanics, Machinery Maintenance Workers, and Millwrights (2024–2034 projections, May 2024 wages). [https://www.bls.gov/ooh/installation-maintenance-and-repair/industrial-machinery-mechanics-and-maintenance-workers-and-millwrights.htm](https://www.bls.gov/ooh/installation-maintenance-and-repair/industrial-machinery-mechanics-and-maintenance-workers-and-millwrights.htm)
* S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Population Survey: Employed people by detailed industry and age, 2025 annual averages. [https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat18b.htm](https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat18b.htm)
* S. Census Bureau, “Manufacturing Faces Labor Shortage as Workforce Ages” (2020). [https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2020/11/manufacturing-faces-labor-shortage-as-workforce-ages.html](https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2020/11/manufacturing-faces-labor-shortage-as-workforce-ages.html)
* S. Census Bureau, “U.S. Workforce is Aging, Especially in Some Firms” (2025). [https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2025/12/older-workers.html](https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2025/12/older-workers.html)
* The Manufacturing Institute, “The Aging of the Manufacturing Workforce.” [https://themanufacturinginstitute.org/research/the-aging-of-the-manufacturing-workforce/](https://themanufacturinginstitute.org/research/the-aging-of-the-manufacturing-workforce/)
* Panopto, “Workplace Knowledge and Productivity Report” (with YouGov, 2018). Cited as the origin of the “$47M” figure, not as an authoritative manufacturing source. [https://www.panopto.com/resource/ebook/valuing-workplace-knowledge/](https://www.panopto.com/resource/ebook/valuing-workplace-knowledge/)

## Frequently Asked Questions

### How many U.S. manufacturing jobs could go unfilled by 2033?

The 2024 Deloitte and Manufacturing Institute Talent Study projects a net need for as many as 3.8 million manufacturing workers between 2024 and 2033, of which about 1.9 million (roughly half) could go unfilled if the skills and applicant gaps are not addressed. The study's Figure 2 attributes 2.8 million of the 3.8 million to retirements, with 760,000 from industry growth and 230,000 from federal investment (IIJA, IRA, and the CHIPS Act).

### Is the 2.1 million manufacturing skills gap figure still current?

No. The 2.1 million unfilled jobs by 2030 figure, and the associated $1 trillion cost, comes from the 2021 Deloitte and Manufacturing Institute study and has been superseded by the 2024 study, which projects about 1.9 million unfilled by 2033. The 2.1 million number was a legitimate projection for its 2021 vintage, but it should be labeled as such rather than cited as today's figure.

### What is the average age of the U.S. manufacturing workforce?

Recent U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Current Population Survey data put the median age of manufacturing workers at about 44 (near 43.9 in 2025) versus 42.1 for all workers, and roughly a quarter of the manufacturing workforce is 55 or older. The often-quoted '44.7 and widening' figure traces to 2012 data and should not be presented as current.

### How large is the U.S. industrial maintenance technician workforce, and is it growing?

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics counts about 538,300 industrial machinery mechanics, machinery maintenance workers, and millwrights as of 2024, projected to grow 13 percent from 2024 to 2034, with about 54,200 openings per year. BLS notes that many of those openings come from replacing workers who transfer to other occupations or leave the labor force, including retirement.

### What is driving the U.S. manufacturing labor shortage?

According to the 2024 Deloitte and Manufacturing Institute study, retirements are the largest driver: 2.8 million of the projected 3.8 million openings through 2033 come from retirements, alongside industry growth and a shortage of applicants. The National Association of Manufacturers' Outlook Survey ranked attracting and retaining talent as a top concern from late 2017 through 2024, though by 2026 trade uncertainty, healthcare costs, and input costs had moved ahead of it.

### Is there a maintenance-specific manufacturing skills gap statistic?

No authoritative national estimate isolates a maintenance-specific skills gap. The widely cited shortfall figures (2.1 million, 1.9 million, and 3.8 million) are whole-sector manufacturing projections from Deloitte and the Manufacturing Institute, and the maintenance picture is best sized from U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics occupation data rather than a standalone study.

### How much do U.S. industrial maintenance technicians earn?

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a median annual wage of $63,510 in May 2024 for industrial machinery mechanics, machinery maintenance workers, and millwrights, with the lowest 10 percent earning under about $44,430 and the highest 10 percent earning more than about $91,620.