USA:Employment and Wages in the American Furniture Industry
‐2002.04.20／

The AKTRIN Furniture Information Center has published a new report on  EMPLOYMENT AND WAGES IN THE AMERICAN FURNITURE INDUSTRY.

The report can be purchased at the web-site
http://furniture-info.com/f_books.htm?116.htm

OVERALL EMPLOYMENT IN FURNITURE MANUFACTURING

Total employment in the furniture and fixtures industry stood at 526,800 persons in 2001. This figure includes those employed in the residential and office furniture sectors

EMPLOYMENT IN FURNITURE COMPARED TO OTHER MANUFACTURERS

Employment in all of manufacturing totaled 17.7 million persons in 2001. With a total of just 526,800 employees the furniture and fixtures industry accounting for only 3.0 percent of the manufacturing total is not a major manufacturing employer in the United States. In fact, it is the fifth smallest employer among the 20 industries comprising the manufacturing sector. Furthermore, furniture and fixtures accounted for only 0.4 percent of the 132.2 million people in total with jobs in the United States in 2001.

FURNITURE AND FIXTURES EMPLOYMENT OVER TIME

Over the last four decades furniture employment has been on the rise, a claim that cannot be made by manufacturers in general. Exhibit 1, however, shows that furniture?/FONT>s climb has not been steady. Demand for the products of both the office and household sectors of the industry is highly cyclical in nature. As a result, furniture employment deviated significantly from its upward trend most of the time over the last forty years with the variation determined by the prevailing stage of the business cycle.

A comparison of the level of furniture industry employment in each of 1973 and 2000 ?/FONT> in other words a fair comparison of two years of ?/FONT>peak?/FONT> economic activity ?/FONT> reveals that employment in furniture and fixtures increased by just over 1,900 persons per year over this period. In sharp contrast, employment in the US manufacturing sector as a whole fell by almost 62,000 persons per year over the same span. Cumulatively over this 27 year period furniture employment grew by 10.1 percent while total manufacturing employment fell by 8.4 percent. We suspect the reason for this phenomenon lies in the fact that the furniture industry lends itself less to the introduction of labor-saving technologies than is the case in other industries.

EXHIBIT 1 Employment in the furniture and fixtures industry, thousands of persons, actual and trend values, 1961 to 2001.

DATA FOR EXHIBIT 1

Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics

Exhibit 2 shows employment in furniture and fixtures in the United States over the period 1961 to 2001 expressed as a percent share of total manufacturing employment. Since furniture employment has increased while total manufacturing employment has decreased, furniture?/FONT>s share of total manufacturing employment has gradually risen.

EXHIBIT 2 Employment in the furniture and fixtures industry AS A PERCENT SHARE OF EMPLOYMENT IN TOTAL MANUFACTURING, 1961 to 2001.

Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics

DATA FOR EXHIBIT 2

FURNITURE AND FIXTURES EMPLOYMENT BY SEX

The furniture and fixtures industry like other manufacturing industries in the United States  is relatively male dominated. The female share of total employment in furniture began the 1960s at only 16 to 17 percent but rapidly increased to around 30 percent by the late 1970s (Exhibit 3). Since that time, however, it has changed very little. Over the last decade the female share hovered between 30 and 33 percent.

EXHIBIT 3 Employment OF FEMALES in the furniture and fixtures industry AS A PERCENT SHARE OF TOTAL EMPLOYMENT IN FURNITURE AND FIXTURES MANUFACTURING, 1961 to 2001.

Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics

Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics

DATA FOR EXHIBIT 3

Within the furniture and fixtures industry, however, the share of total employment accounted for by women is known to vary significantly. For example, in the upholstered household segment and in the miscellaneous furniture and fixtures segment the share is known to reach close to 40 percent while in the partitions and fixtures segment it falls below 20 percent.

FURNITURE AND FIXTURES EMPLOYMENT BY INDUSTRY SEGMENT

Household furniture manufacturers employed 52.2 percent of the 526,800 people employed by the furniture and fixtures industry in total in 2001, or 275,000 persons. The remaining 251,900, or 47.8 percent, were employed by office and other furniture manufacturers. Though it commands the greater share today household furniture manufacturers witnessed a gradual erosion in their share of total furniture and fixtures industry employment over the last two decades.

As of 2001 the following observations can be made (see Exhibit 4):

the non-upholstered wood household furniture segment employs the greatest number of workers at almost 121,000; in other words this segment employs almost one-quarter of all those employed in the furniture and fixtures industry in 2001; that share, however, is down from almost 30 percent in the early 1980s

manufacturers of upholstered household furniture are the second largest employer in the industry; in 2001 they employed more than 89,000 people, or almost 17 percent of the furniture and fixtures?/FONT> total; that share, too, is down, but only slightly, from its level in the early 1980s

the partitions and fixtures segment is the next largest employer accounting for almost 86,000 people in 2001, or more than16 percent of the industry?/FONT>s total; in the early 1980s this segment?/FONT>s share was about 13 percent

the remaining segments account for the remaining 44 percent; thus each is a relatively small employer within the overall furniture and fixtures industry

EXHIBIT 4 Employment in the furniture and fixtures industry BY SEGMENT IN 2001.

Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics

　PRODUCTION VS. NON-PRODUCTION FURNITURE AND FIXTURES EMPLOYMENT

The non-production worker share varied widely in 2001 across the nine segments comprising the furniture and fixtures industry in the United States (Exhibit 5). The non-production share is generally higher within the office group (at almost 25 percent) compared to the household group (at just 16 percent) since office furniture is frequently distributed directly by the manufacturers and often must be custom designed. Thus more marketing and design staff must be retained by office furniture manufacturers.　

EXHIBIT 5 Employment in the furniture and fixtures industry BY SEGMENT BY EMPLOYEE TYPE IN 2001.

Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics

Production worker employment in the manufacture of furniture and fixtures has grown less rapidly than that of non-production workers (see Exhibit 6). In the early 1960s salaried and commissioned workers accounted for only about 17 percent of total employment in this industry but that share gradually increased to reach more than 20 percent by the early 1980s, a share it maintains to this date.

The long-term increase reflects both the introduction over time of labor-saving technology (which has reduced the relative need for production workers) and the increasingly complex business environment (which has increased the relative need for marketing and administrative workers to move furniture products from the plant to the final consumer).

EXHIBIT 6 PRODUCTION AND NON-PRODUCTION Employment in the furniture and fixtures industry, 1961 TO 2001. (000s)

Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics

　DATA FOR EXHIBIT 6

FURNITURE AND FIXTURES EMPLOYMENT BY OCCUPATION

Exhibit 7 provides U.S. Bureau of Labor estimates of the occupational distribution of the 551,240 jobs in the furniture and fixtures industry in 2000. These estimates suggest:

a variety of administrative support occupations account for almost 9 percent of all the jobs in the industry, and for almost half the jobs in the non-production employment group

senior managers collectively account for about 6 percent of those employed in the industry

within the production worker group the biggest occupation categories are assemblers and installers at just over 13 percent and cabinetmakers at just over 7 percent

The annual earnings of workers in the industry varied significantly across the occupational groups in 2000 ranging from an average of almost $112,000 among chief executives at the top of the scale to an average of just over $16,000 among food preparation workers at the bottom of the scale. The average across all occupations in 2000 was $27,680.　　　

EXHIBIT 7 Employment in the furniture and fixtures industry BY OCCUpation, 2000.

FURNITURE AND FIXTURES EMPLOYMENT BY STATE

Employment data in the furniture and fixtures industry on a state by state basis in the United States is incomplete. In 2001 the Bureau of Labor Statistics assigned only about 92 percent of the jobs to individual states. Thus the remaining 8 percent go unallocated.

Exhibit 8 ranks employment across the 30 states for which the data are published. Exhibit 8 reveals that North Carolina leads the list overall as the site of almost 73,000 furniture industry jobs in 2001. California places second accounting for almost 60,000 furniture industry employees, followed by Michigan at 43,000, Mississippi at 28,000, Indiana at 26,000, Tennessee at 25,000, Virginia at 21,000, Texas at 21,000, Ohio at 19,000, Wisconsin (in tenth place) at 18,000. The ten states in this list collectively accounted for just over 332,000 of the 526,800 jobs in the industry in 2001 (or 63 percent).

The leading employers among the states in the household furniture segment are North Carolina, California and Mississippi, while the leading employers in the office segment are Michigan, California and Illinois.

It was noted earlier that nation-wide furniture industry employment accounts for 0.4 percent of all the jobs held by Americans. Furniture industry employment is much more important than it is to the nation as an economic base in several states, most notably in Mississippi (where it accounts for 1.9 percent of the state?/FONT>s total jobs), North Carolina (1.6 percent), North Dakota (1.2 percent), Tennessee (0.7 percent), Michigan (0.6 percent), Indiana (0.6 percent), Arkansas (0.5 percent), Virginia (0.5 percent), Wisconsin (0.4 percent) and Alabama (0.4 percent).

EXHIBIT 8 Employment in the furniture and

fixtures industry BY STATE, 2001.

Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics