The strength of South Carolina manufacturing is reinforced by a broad-based supplier and logistics network, resulting in some of the highest employment multipliers in the state, especially within automotive manufacturing.
At the same time, the industry’s shift toward advanced, high-skill production has helped narrow historic wage gaps with traditional manufacturing states in the Rust Belt and has positioned South Carolina as a nationally competitive location for investment, even amidst recent economic volatility.
Earlier this year, South Carolina Manufacturers + Commerce, the state affiliate for the National Association of Manufacturers, alongside SC Future Makers and the Darla Moore School of Business, released their comprehensive 2026 report: The Economic Impact of Manufacturing in South Carolina.
Prepared by Joseph C. Von Nessen, Ph.D., the 45-page report examines the full scope of the manufacturing industry's statewide influence and contributions to employment, wages, and overall economic activity.
Together, the findings underscore why manufacturing remains one of South Carolina’s most vital industries and why its success is closely tied to the state’s prosperity.
The reshoring edge
Despite the high degree of volatility over the past five years, South Carolina remains among the most competitive locations for U.S. manufacturing.
Not only has South Carolina manufacturing employment expanded at more than twice the national average since 2010 (+26.4 percent vs. +9.4 percent), it has also remained relatively resilient throughout the 2020s.
Between 2019 and 2025, manufacturing employment in South Carolina expanded by a total of approximately +1.2 percent, compared to a pullback of -1.8 percent at the national level.
The report also connects the economic impact, consumer trends, and migration changes due to the Covid-19 pandemic as key factors in manufacturers' increasingly deciding to establish production facilities in South Carolina.
Specifically, the report notes that the pandemic accelerated the rate at which the U.S. population has migrated to the Southeast. South Carolina in particular has consistently recorded rapid population growth, ranking in the top six among all states in each of the last five years for percentage change. In fact, between July 1, 2024, and July 1, 2025, South Carolina’s population grew at a rate of 1.5 percent, faster than any other state in the country, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
This translates to the fact that, ultimately, there will be an increasing demand for manufactured goods in the region over time, which will attract manufacturers who are looking to access this growing segment of the U.S. market. Because some manufacturers want to locate near consumers, a fast-growing population base puts the Southeast in a strong position to compete for these companies.
For example, Isuzu North America Corporation, a supplier of commercial vehicles, announced in February 2025, that it had selected Greenville County to establish the company's new production base in the United States. This $280 million investment is set to create more than 700 jobs, according to Gov. Henry McMaster's office. When completed, the plant will have a production capacity of 50,000 units annually.
During Isuzu's groundbreaking in Piedmont in October 2025 for this 1-million-square-foot electric vehicle production plant, Shigeo Yamada, the Japanese ambassador to the U.S., highlighted the economic partnership between Japan and South Carolina. "In his conversation with President Trump earlier this year, Prime Minister (Shigeru) Ishiba mentioned this very Isuzu factory as a clear and concrete example of the strong economic partnership," Yamada said.
Noboru Murakami, the chairman and CEO of Isuzu North America Corporation, when discussing Isuzu's strengthening commitment to its North American market, expressed a sentiment shared by more and more manufacturers coming to the Palmetto State: “With this new plant, we are getting closer to our customers and the market, strengthening our ability to serve them, and investing in the future. Our new facility will create jobs, contribute to the local economy, and provide a foundation for long-term growth and success,” said Murakami.
Employment Impact
Although manufacturing’s direct employment base alone represents 10.9 percent of all jobs in South Carolina, after accounting for the additional impacts resulting from all economic multiplier effects, this percentage jumps to 30.2 percent.
Put more succinctly, manufacturing supports, either directly or indirectly, over 30 percent of all jobs in South Carolina, making it among the state’s largest industry sectors. Moreover, manufacturing provides employment opportunities in small- and mid-sized communities where economic growth has often lagged that of larger, metropolitan regions.
South Carolina’s manufacturing industry also exhibits some of the state’s highest employment multiplier effects. The report reveals that the aggregate employment multiplier effect across the entire statewide manufacturing base is approximately 2.5.
This means that for every 10 jobs that are supported directly by South Carolina manufacturing, an additional 15 jobs are created elsewhere in South Carolina. This multiplier effect is higher than that of the average industry in South Carolina, which is estimated to be approximately 1.72.
Moreover, many of the state’s largest manufacturing sectors have multipliers well in excess of this state average. The report specifically highlights the state’s 20 largest manufacturing sectors, which together comprise nearly 40 percent of the manufacturing employment base in South Carolina.
The sector with the highest employment multiplier is petrochemical manufacturing, at 7.60, followed by basic organic chemical manufacturing at 6.21 and iron and steel mills/ferroalloy manufacturing at 5.62. Even though the "lowest" multiplier comes in at 1.89 with aircraft manufacturing, every manufacturing employment multiplier is above 1.72, with many being significantly higher.
The total number of employees in South Carolina working directly for manufacturing companies is estimated to be 263,500. Of this total, 160,998 (61 percent) are in manufacturing occupations, while the remaining 102,502 (39 percent) are not.
Manufacturing occupations include categories such as “First-Line Supervisors of Production and Operating Workers,” “Machinists,” and “Welders, Cutters, Solderers, and Brazers.”
Non-manufacturing occupations include categories such as “Operations Specialties Managers,” “Buyers and Purchasing Agents,” and “Financial Analysts.”
Recent labor force growth trends across the Southeastern U.S. highlight another key competitive advantage for South Carolina.
The Palmetto State has added approximately 170,000 labor market participants since 2022, reflecting an outsized gain relative to its population and has specifically seen more gains than North Carolina (+97K), Tennessee (+147K), and Georgia (+136K).
The report emphasizes this fact as especially striking when considering that North Carolina and Georgia are approximately twice the size of South Carolina. This expanding labor force provides a larger pool of workers for employers and is a key resource for long-run economic growth.
The outsized impact of automotive manufacturing
Transportation equipment manufacturing is the largest and fastest-growing manufacturing subsector in South Carolina, having nearly doubled as a share of the state’s total manufacturing industry over the past 20 years (from 11.9 percent to 20.3 percent).
The current economic impact of the manufacturing industry in South Carolina is estimated to total between $294 billion and $313 billion annually. This figure reflects the dollar value representing all final goods and services produced statewide that can be attributed (directly or indirectly) to manufacturing.
This level of economic activity corresponds to between 734,114 and 782,867 jobs and to between $55 billion and $59 billion in labor income for South Carolinians.
Automotive manufacturing also maintains an especially high employment multiplier of 4.59. This means that for every 10 jobs created in automotive manufacturing, an additional 36 jobs are created elsewhere in South Carolina.
When compared to the average employment multiplier across all South Carolina industries (at 1.72), this shows that new automotive manufacturing investments have a relatively unique ability to scale-up employment in the Palmetto State.
Take Scout Motors, for instance. Scout Motors, a Volkswagen AG-backed independent automotive manufacturer of electric trucks and SUVs, broke ground on its Blythewood Production Center in 2024. Now, with the factory soon to begin production, the company plans to have hired between 200 and 400 initial floor workers by the end of 2026, with a goal of shipping its first Scout vehicles to customers in 2027.
Scout Motors projects that once the Production Center is operating at full capacity, sometime in 2030-'31, the $2 billion assembly plant will employ 4,000 workers and produce 200,000 vehicles per day. In the meantime, more than 150,000 customers have signed up to buy the first Scout Vehicles when they come out in 2027.
Scout Motors has also made an additional investment of $300 million in South Carolina to build a Supplier Park on the site of its Production Center in Blythewood. This initiative, which does not come with any new government incentives, is expected to support approximately 1,000 additional supplier jobs.
As noted in the report, from 2005 to 2025, transportation equipment manufacturing as a share of total manufacturing in South Carolina increased from 11.9 percent to 20.3 percent. This can be compared to national trends, in which its share remained relatively stable, increasing from 12.5 percent to 13.7 percent over the same time period.
The high-value production in which transportation equipment manufacturing firms are engaged can be seen directly by examining productivity levels, which are measured by output per worker, that is the average economic value generated by each employee.
Per the report, productivity levels in the manufacturing industry as a whole are approximately 14 percent higher than that of the average South Carolina industry.
This “productivity premium” is even higher for transportation equipment manufacturing, where output per worker is approximately 36 percent higher than that of the average South Carolina industry.
While the average annual manufacturing wage in South Carolina is below that of the average Rust Belt state, this gap has shrunk from -16.3 percent in 2004 to -5.3 percent in 2024, meaning that South Carolina’s average manufacturing wage has increased by 11 percentage points relative to Rust Belt states.
The net effect of these trends is that manufacturing jobs in South Carolina maintain a wage premium of roughly 24 percent over the average South Carolina job.
Per the report, the annual wage of the average manufacturing job in South Carolina is $75,698, compared to $61,011 for all jobs across South Carolina. Thus, manufacturing is a major generator of jobs for South Carolinians, both in terms of job quantity and job quality.
Statewide impact
A major impact that the manufacturing industry generates for the state of South Carolina comes from the state tax revenue that results from the economic activity it supports.
As outlined in the report, the total economic impact of manufacturing on the state of South Carolina conservatively approximates $293.9 billion annually.
Historically, every additional dollar that is generated in economic activity (i.e., nominal gross state product) within South Carolina also generates 4.4 cents in new state tax revenue. By applying this figure to the economic activity generated by South Carolina manufacturing, the tax revenue from this total volume of activity can be estimated.
The report shows that the annual total estimated tax revenue that arises from manufacturing in South Carolina is approximately $4.6 billion.
A great deal of the manufacturing sector's wealth and growth is the result of international trade, as these firms and others buy parts and supplies from abroad and sell many of their finished products on the international market.
In 2024, for example, South Carolina exported $38 billion in goods, accounting for 11.6 percent of the Palmetto State's GDP. Manufactured products made up nearly all of that total ($37.2 billion).
Foreign companies aren't the only active exporters: A total of 6,261 companies in the Palmetto State sent products abroad in 2023, and 84 percent of them were small- and medium-sized companies with fewer than 500 employees.
Transportation equipment, such as cars and tires, accounted for $19.2 billion of South Carolina's exports in 2024, making it the largest manufacturing export category.
In other words, more than half the value of all manufactured goods exported out of South Carolina came from automobiles and automobile-related products. Many of these products require inputs made overseas and imported into the state; automobile parts, including engines and transmissions, accounted for over $3.5 billion in imports.
The indirect impact of South Carolina's manufacturing industries is reflected in the additional economic activity that results from inter-industry linkages between local firms in South Carolina.
For example, if an automotive manufacturer were to purchase computer equipment from an in-state supplier, then this computer equipment supplier would experience an increase in demand.
To satisfy this demand, the computer equipment supplier would purchase additional inputs from its own vendors, and so on.
These indirect effects ripple through the economy and affect many industrial sectors of South Carolina.
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