Facts on the New Maryland Manufacturing Workforce
Between 1983 and 2002, employment in high-skill manufacturing occupations, which is largely comprised of professional specialty occupations, increased 37 percent, an increase of roughly 1.2 million jobs.

• As the number of Maryland workers in manufacturing has declined, the demand for higher-skilled workers has been on the rise allowing wages to increase off an already elevated base.

 
Between 1996 and 2006, average manufacturing wages in Maryland rose 48.3 percent, more than the corresponding statistic for the overall state economy. 
 
Maryland’s manufacturing workers are more productive than in most states.  On average, production workers in Maryland added $85.90 in manufacturing value for each hour worked in 2000, a manufacturing productivity level that was 3 percent higher than the national level of $83.42. 
 
Maryland’s manufacturing workers possess a higher-than-average share of non-production (e.g., design-oriented, service-oriented, strategically-oriented) workers, a category that encompasses engineering, technical activities, management, legal and financial duties and other office functions. 

• Production workers accounted for 64 percent of Maryland manufacturing workforce that in 2000, compared to 72 percent nationwide.

 
According to 2001 U.S. Census data, Maryland ranked in the top half of U.S. states in terms of the educational level of its workforce. 

• Maryland’s ranking would have been higher but for the significant presence of food processing, an industry of great importance, but which does not necessarily create outsized demands for technically sophisticated personnel.