Nonprofits Employ More People Than Manufacturers - Michael Towner (Iconic Legacy)

​According to the latest-available employment data by Johns Hopkins University researchers, for the first time ever, the nonprofit world’s work force is larger than the manufacturing industry work force. Nonprofits had an estimated 12,488,563 workers on their payrolls in 2017, manufacturing companies had 12,456,203 workers. The data in the study includes all workers — full-time, part-time, and contractors.
Hotels, restaurants, and other entities that involve providing lodging or food services have a larger labor pool than nonprofits, at 13.7 million workers, and employees at retail stores number 15.9 million. According to the study, nonprofit workers now account for about 10.2% of the United States national work force, easily exceeding other industries such as construction (7.1 million) and finance and insurance (5.9 million). 
The nonprofit world has been growing faster than the for-profit work force for several years. The nonprofit world’s overtaking of manufacturing is also partly the result of a slow-growing manufacturing industry.  From 2016 to 2017, the number of nonprofit workers increased by almost 2 percent, while the number of employees in the business world increased by 1.5 percent. Another nuance of the study showed that rural areas have higher nonprofit shares of employment than do the smaller urban or metropolitan areas. In smaller metropolitan areas, nonprofit workers account for about 7% of the work force. In rural areas, they account for 8.7%.
However, in a separate study, the repercussions of low pay within the nonprofits themselves, create high turnover and difficulties in hiring employees from diverse backgrounds to carry out their missions. Some nonprofits are taking steps to offer better pay and benefits, sabbaticals, and professional development for all workers, not just senior leaders. But only thirteen people of color and 29 women head the nation’s 100 biggest nonprofits — and all the rest are led by white men, according to an exclusive analysis conducted by Michael Theis for the Chronicle of Philanthropy.