The U.S. economy added 151,000 jobs in January, well below the robust pace at the end of 2015, though the unemployment rate fell under 5 percent for the first time in nearly eight years. The unemployment rate ticked down to 4.9 percent from 5 percent, the lowest level since February 2008, the Labor Department reported on Friday. Economists had expected between 185,000 and 200,000 jobs and January’s numbers will add to fears about the strength of the economy in 2016.

This seminar helps gear designers gain a better understanding of various types of gears and bearings. Learn about the limitation and capabilities of rolling element bearings and the gears that they support so you can properly apply the best gear-bearing combination to any gearbox, whether simple or complex.

The following is a guest blog post from Don Kinard, Lockheed Martin Fellow posted after NAM President and CEO Jay Timmons attended a systems demonstration, led by Kinard, at Lockheed Martin’s Dallas facility during the 2016 State of Manufacturing Tour.

With a FY2016 budget of $573 billion, the Department of Defense is hoping to increase the total amount of defense spending to $582.7 billion for FY2017. That’s a lot of digits! Fortunately, it will all be going to useful things that most ordinary citizens care deeply about, like 3D printed micro drones.

As a member of the 3MF Consortium, an investor in 3D printing startups, and a regular user of the technology, Siemens is a firm advocate of 3D printing. Today, the company announced that it was making further moves into the industry with a facility devoted entirely to metal 3D printing. The €21.4 million facility, located in Siemen’s industrial plant in Finspång, Sweden, is both the first of its kind for Siemens and for Sweden.

Central Illinois manufacturers of products from commercial coffee makers to high-tech circuit boards for agricultural equipment have formed their own networking organization.

The Central Illinois Manufacturing Roundtable organized in early 2015 primarily focuses on industry issues such as supply-chain efficiency, quality control, risk management, international sales, employee training and marketing. But a regional manager for the group said the roundtable also was formed to highlight the continued importance of manufacturing as a regional industry.

Students learn the fundamentals of gear manufacturing in this classroom and hands-on course. In the classroom this course offers training in gearing and nomenclature, principles of inspection, gear manufacturing methods, and hobbing and shaping. In the hands-on gear lab, using manual machines, students can see the interaction between the cutting tool and the workpiece. They understand the process and the physics of making a gear and can apply this knowledge in working with CNC equipment commonly in use.

The auto industry is looking south for new factories and the farther south, the better. Canada is struggling when it comes to retaining auto jobs, the U.S. is a house divided with most of the new automotive investment and jobs headed south of the Mason-Dixon line and Mexico is the auto industry darling.

Crain’s Cleveland Business

On one hand, there’s the booming automotive business, where consumers are continuing to buy new cars at record levels. On the other, there’s the struggling steel industry, which has taken a hit from a strong dollar and an influx of imports.

"2016 is going to be really two tracks for manufacturing," said Mekael Teshome, an economist with Pittsburgh-based PNC Financial Services Group.

The good news is that the American unemployment rate dropped below 5% for the first time since February 2008, according to new numbers released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The better news is that manufacturing created almost as many new jobs in January as it did in all of 2015.

FRANKFURT--German manufacturing orders in December failed to build on their recent strength--despite strong demand from outside the eurozone--after domestic demand for capital and intermediate goods collapsed, data released Friday showed.

Jay Timmons was preaching to the choir in GlaxoSmithKline's sun-drenched lobby at its Navy Yard offices. Timmons, who heads the National Association of Manufacturers, emphasized the value of manufacturing, expressed concerns about what he described as business-stifling regulation and overtaxation, and stressed the importance of introducing young people to careers in manufacturing.

The 3D printing of metals is the industry’s fastest growing sector; various reports suggest that sales of metal-based 3D printers are up on last year’s numbers by upwards of 50%. According to a recent survey of additive manufacturing (AM) professionals the use of metal additive manufacturing is set to double over the course of the next three years, in that same survey 84% of participants said they’d like to see further developments in metal materials for additive manufacturing.

Published reports are saying that Ford plans to build a new auto plant in Mexico, with plans to rev up production there. According to The Wall Street Journal, Ford plans to build a new assembly complex in San Luis Potosi and expand an existing facility near Mexico City.

The U.S. trade deficit rose in December as American exports fell for a third straight month, reflecting the pressures of a stronger dollar and spreading global weakness. Those factors contributed to the first annual drop in U.S. export sales since the Great Recession shrank global trade six years ago.

It’s been five years since the venture capitalist Marc Andreessen quipped that "software is eating the world," meaning that all of the digital tools and platforms needed to transform industries through software finally worked and were doing that. To prove his point Andreessen ticked off a long list of mostly consumer-facing service industries like bookselling, music, telecom, and air travel that were being productively disrupted. Though he noted that the global economy would soon be "fully digitally wired" he didn’t have as much to say about the manufacturing sector.

Disruptive change – what many economists herald as creative destruction—has been a hallmark of U.S. manufacturing through the ages, with new technology frequently the driving force. By now you know that the era in which we live is another of those times.