IE manufacturing employment falls 4.1% as national factory activity hits four-year high
The national manufacturing story this spring is the loudest it has been in years. The ISM Manufacturing PMI registered 54.0 in May, its strongest reading since 2022, and the S&P Global US Manufacturing PMI hit 55.1 — both signaling the fastest factory expansion in four years. The White House has called it the largest reshoring wave in American history.
The Inland Empire is moving the other way. EDD data shows IE manufacturing employment at 92,200 in May 2026, down from 96,100 a year earlier — a 4.1% decline. Durable and non-durable goods fell at nearly identical rates, so this is a broad contraction, not one weak segment. Over the same year, total nonfarm employment in the region was essentially flat, which means manufacturing underperformed the regional economy as a whole.
The reason the national tide isn't lifting the region is structural. The reshoring investment that is actually moving — as opposed to announced — concentrates in semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, autos, and the power and data-center buildout supporting them. IoT Analytics, reading the same period, found national manufacturing construction spending down roughly a fifth from its 2024 peak, with the real activity clustered in those advanced sectors and sited in Arizona, the Midwest, and the Southeast. None of that is the IE's base. The region's industrial economy is distribution-warehousing and the lighter manufacturing that rides alongside it, not chip fabs or auto plants.
For an operator here, the takeaway is that a national factory-activity headline is not a demand signal that reaches this region. The capacity being built is being built elsewhere, by sector. An IE manufacturer or developer reading those national numbers should price in the divergence rather than the headline: the corridor's manufacturing base is contracting while the country's expands, and the gap reflects what the IE makes, not how the IE is performing within its own mix.
The logistics side offers no offset. Transportation and warehousing was flat year over year — warehousing and storage rose 2.6%, but couriers fell 11.2% and truck transportation fell 3.1% — leaving the region's defining sector stuck in its post-boom adjustment rather than absorbing displaced manufacturing workers.