ConExpo 2020: Heavy equipment yields weighty economic impact

A study by the Milwaukee-based Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) has found the sector its association represents contributes $288 billion to the United States economy and supports 2.8 million jobs. The study and its findings were announced at the 2020 ConExpo-Con/Agg event in Las Vegas in March.

Manufacturers of construction, mining, and agriculture equipment—some of which also is used in the demolition, recycling and waste sectors—remains “a critical part of the U.S. economy and represents 12 percent of all manufacturing jobs in the United States,” says AEM.

The study, titled “Market Size and Economic Contributions of the Off-Highway Industry,” was produced by IHS Markit.

“Every day, the 2.8 million men and women of our industry roll up their sleeves and go to work building state-of-the-art equipment in communities across the country,” says Dennis Slater, president of AEM. “This report tells the story of the people who make America by building the combine the farmer uses to harvest his corn and the excavator the construction worker uses to build our roads and bridges.”

For the period from 2017 to 2019, AEM says the report shows growth at a rate of nearly 10 percent, “fueled in part by historic tax reform and regulatory relief.” Adds the AEM, “However, tariffs on steel and other critical inputs, along with a protracted trade war with China, caused growth to slow to just 1.2 percent in 2019, with both the construction and agriculture equipment sectors contracting by 0.7 and 0.6 percent respectively.”

In a news release accompanying the study’s release, AEM says manufacturing remains important to Americans. The association points to a “recent national poll [that] shows that 91 percent of registered voters say manufacturing is critical or important to the U.S. economy.”

The same poll also shows that more than three quarters of registered voters “want to know how presidential candidates plan to support and grow manufacturing in the United States,” according to the AEM.