We next consider job losses in transportation equipment manufacturing (NAICS 336).  Here we find products in the motor vehicle, aerospace, railroad, shipping, and other transportation categories.  Product categories include:

• Motor vehicles, including automobiles, light duty trucks and utility vehicles, heavy duty trucks and trailers, buses, firefighting vehicles, motor homes, travel trailers, and campers, and motor vehicle components including bodies, gasoline engines and parts, electrical and electronic equipment, steering and suspension components, brake systems, transmissions and drive trains, seating and interior trim, metal stampings, air-conditioning systems, exhaust systems, filters, and wheels;
• Civilian and military aircraft, engines, and parts and guided missiles and space vehicles; railroad locomotives and freight and passenger cars and trolley, subway and rapid transit cars;
• Civilian and military ships, barges and platforms; motorboats and sailboats; motorcycles, bicycles, and parts; military armored vehicles and tanks; and all-terrain vehicles and golf carts. 

Manufacturing facilities in this large and important subsector, which employed 2,134,875 workers at the beginning of 1990, employed an average 1,562,467 in 2014.  The following figure and table illustrate those job losses: 

After a dip following the 1990-91 recession, we see a substantial recovery through the economic expansion of the 1990s, to over 2 million jobs in 1997-2000.  Following is a rapid fall-off beginning after 2000, coincident with the 2001 recession and the granting of permanent most favored nation status and WTO membership to China.  After leveling off from 2003 through 2007, job losses accelerate again through the Great Recession, bottoming out at about 1.3 million jobs in 2010.  From 1990 through 2010, the subsector shed four of every then jobs.  Since the low of 2010, employment has seen a recovery of some 230,000 (29%) of the 802,000 lost jobs, to an average of 1,562,467 jobs in 2014.

Key Finding:

Between 1990 and 2014, after experiencing a partial recovery in 2010-2014, the transportation manufacturing subsector[i] saw a 29% decline in employment, shedding 572,408 jobs. 

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