State of Manufacturing®

Join us in November for the 2021 State of Manufacturing® Survey release event. Our pollster will be out in the field surveying Minnesota manufacturing executives beginning in August.

Participate in a Focus Group

Manufacturing executives are invited to participate in one of our confidential Focus Groups that provides context and insight to the trends our survey reveals. Focus Group sessions are happening throughout September 2021.

Contact us to register to participate in a Focus Group – click here.

COVID uncertainties cloud manufacturers’ outlook.

The COVID-19 pandemic cast a long shadow over Minnesota’s manufacturers on 2020, triggering the deepest plunge in manufacturers’ expectations for their companies since the Great Recession of 2009. A record low number of companies expect increased revenues in 2020; the number of executives who fear recession has increased seven-fold, and confidence in the business climate has sunk to half of what it was in 2018.

Overall, seventy percent of manufacturers say the COVID-19 pandemic has had a “major” (35%) or “modest” (35%) impact on their businesses. The impact appears to be felt less in the western half of the state. Despite this, manufacturers continue to have confidence in their companies’ long-term resilience, as they have shown in all the years of the poll. There was a significant increase in the number of manufacturers who fear recession, however (36%, up from just 5% the year earlier).

Read the pollster’s full analysis here.

To view the complete slide deck, please click here.

11 focus group interviews were conducted in coordination with the 2020 survey. These focus groups give us detailed insights into what manufacturing executives are seeing in their businesses. To read more about focus group responses, click here.

For complete focus group transcripts, visit our Research Page.