If you're going by winter weather patterns or links of bratwurst eaten per capita, Milwaukee and San Francisco probably don't have much in common. But if you're comparing growth in manufacturing jobs over last year, they're practically BFFs.
Milwaukee and San Francisco saw the highest percentage growth in manufacturing jobs over last year, according to a new analysis by the statistics firm Wanted Analytics. Wanted compared hiring data, including job ads, from April to June 2015 for 350 U.S. metropolitan areas.
The Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis, Wisconsin area saw a 33.5% increase in manufacturing jobs over the same time period last year. General Plastics and Milwaukee Tool recently accounted expansions in Milwaukee.
San Francisco saw a 26.5% increase, and Dallas, 16.7%. Chicago and New York also showed double-digit growth.
Milwaukee is home to some 118,000 manufacturing jobs, according to the latest census data. San Francisco is slightly higher, at about 124,000.
Industrial engineers and first-line supervisors of production and operating workers saw the highest number of new jobs. Percentage-wise, occupational growth was highest for medical scientists--a 16.1% increase over last year. Computer user support specialists were also in high demand, with an 8.1% increase.
Hard skills areas where demand has risen notably over last year include “good manufacturing practice,” Linux, and “quality systems. “
Job growth was particularly significant in electronic computer manufacturing (24.4% increase), soft drink manufacturing (16.1%) and surgical and medical instrument manufacturing (12.9%). Aircraft manufacturing showed a 5.4% increase, and semiconductors, a 9% increase.
