| Manufacturing is a key sector for the United States economy. The U.S. is the largest producer of manufactured goods. Standing alone, the U.S. manufacturing sector would represent the fifth largest economy of the world. However, during the period of this study from 1972 to 1997, there were major changes in the structure of the U.S. manufacturing industry, including a significant decline of manufacturing employment in absolute and relative terms and a substantive decline of the contribution of manufacturing value added to the gross domestic product of the United States.;Within the U.S., the Los Angeles five-county region is the most important manufacturing producing area, and this work focuses on selected variables (number of establishments, number of employees, value added, production workers hours) of the regional manufacturing sector to determine if during the period of the study the evolution of the regional manufacturing depended on the behavior and trends of growth of the national manufacturing industry, or if the dynamic forces specific to the region were the determinant the growth of a regional/local branch of manufacturing. This leads to identify the key industries in the region that make the most important contribution to total manufacturing output and employment. This study looks at each branch of the twenty manufacturing industries classified at two digits in the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC). The analysis uses two traditional techniques widely used by economists, planners, sociologists, and other social scientists: the location quotients (of employment and of value added), and a shift share analysis of employment that goes from 1972 to 2001. The period of analysis is from 1972 to 1997 when the data used is based on the Census of Manufactures, and goes to 2001, when the data used corresponds to the number of employees from the County Business Patterns. |
