U.S. Manufacturing

Via Mark Thoma, Dennis Lockhart, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, gives an overview of U.S. manufacturing:

Manufacturing output represents about 11 percent of the U.S. economy in real GDP terms. It may surprise you that this percentage has been relatively constant for several decades. A lot has been written about the growing demand for Chinese-made goods, and China's manufacturing sector is expanding rapidly. Despite China's rapid growth, the United States remains the world's largest manufacturer. According to U.N. data, the United States accounts for one-fifth of global manufacturing output in real terms. That share has held largely constant for the past 20 years.
The United States' high share of global manufacturing output reflects to a significant extent the size of the U.S. economy and domestic demand. Although U.S. exports have grown rapidly, the United States is not the world's largest goods exporter. China and Germany export more manufactured goods than the United States.
In the current recovery, manufacturing production has grown faster than total GDP. But while GDP has already reached prerecession levels, manufacturing output is still about 10 percent lower than three years ago because of its outsized decline during the recession.

With all the job losses and plant closures, it is surprising that manufacturing has remained so consistent as a percentage of GDP.