Good news! U.S. manufacturers employed 12,922,000 people in October, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). That’s 4 percent more than in October 2021 and 13 percent more than in April 2020, the manufacturing employment low point of the COVID recession. 

TOKYO—Toyota Motor Corp will change the way it pays factory workers, focusing on their performance rather than their seniority. Toyota’s new arrangement, designed to attract young talent, will apply to about 40,000 employees, or about 60 percent of its workforce.

NEW YORK CITY—A new study has found that pay for U.S. manufacturing employees has lagged over the last decade, even as jobs are now returning to the country as the recession fades. According to the National Employment Law Project, the median manufacturing wage fell by 5.2 percent between 2003 and 2013.

TOKYO—Toyota, its parts makers and dealers are pushing back on union proposals to increase wages for workers in Japan.

WASHINGTON—Factory pay hasn’t kept pace with inflation and has fallen 3 percent on that basis since May 2009, while average pay for all wage earners slid only about 1 percent.