Dan Ariens laid off workers, cut shifts, and halted nearly all hiring last summer after sales slumped at his company, best known for making bright orange snow blowers and lawnmowers sold around the world. Headcount fell 20% to 1,600 people, and he doesn't see business improving until 2025.
The experience of the Ariens Company, a fourth-generation family-owned firm in Brillion, Wisconsin, shows the stark contrast between factory employment in the United States — essentially flat-lining for more than a year — and the four-year boom in the wider job market.
U.S. President Joe Biden's industrial policy, headlined by legislation passed in 2022 that sparked a surge of factory construction, is aimed at boosting semiconductors, electric vehicles and green technologies, as well as other sectors.