By Andrew Carlsgaard, benchmarking and analytics director, AMBA
The 2025 AMBA Wage & Salary Report continues to show a familiar trend that mirrors last year’s results: rising wages and salaries across the US mold building workforce, albeit at a slower pace than inflation and the US manufacturing industry. The survey results of 88 mold builders, representing nearly 3,500 employees, once again indicate an upward wage trend, as 37 of the 53 industry job categories (70%) tracked year-over-year have reported increases from 2024 to 2025. These lower wage increases (an average of 1.4% wage growth from 2024 to 2025 across all positions) compared to some past years primarily are due to lower demand and competition for workers in 2025.
The elevated demand for manufacturing workers from 2020 to 2022 has declined since 2023 and continued into 2025. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics 1 reported that workforce participation and unemployment gradually have rebounded to pre-pandemic levels over the past few years. Low unemployment, plentiful job openings and lower participation rates have continued to create a favorable labor market for workers in the early post-pandemic years. However, progressively lower inflation and heightened economic uncertainty (and higher unemployment) in 2024 and 2025 have slowed this trend compared to the early
post-pandemic era.
The 2025 report highlights significant changes in various roles across the US mold manufacturing industry. The average year-over-year increase for the 37 positions that saw growth was approximately 3.5%, down from 5.3% in the 2024 report. The remaining 16 positions had salaries that decreased or stayed the same, averaging about 4.0% lower in 2025 (compared to a 6.2% decrease in 2024). Notably, the largest salary increases were for customer service representatives (16.5%), gun drill operators (15.6%) and delivery drivers (9.3%). Conversely, the most significant median wage declines were seen in CEOs (9.9%), sales directors and managers (7.2%) and general machinists (7.1%). Given the top two declines, this data may suggest a reduced demand – and thus lower salaries – for some positions that contribute more to a mold builder’s overhead, such as leadership or back-office roles.
Average yearly wage increases for all tracked positions from 2024 to 2025 generally have risen, and for the second consecutive year, inflation likely is to account for most or all of this growth. The consumer price index – the main measure used by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics 1 to track year-over-year price inflation – surged in early 2021 and peaked in June 2022 at around 9.1%. However, the rate dropped to a three-year low of 3.0% in June 2023 and has stayed within the upper 2% to low 3% range over the past two years. To provide context, this still is higher compared to the pre-pandemic average rate of 1.8% in 2019. The average inflation rate for 2025 (through September) is 2.7%, while the average wage growth for all tracked positions in the 2025 Wage and Salary Report was only 1.4% – a third of that rate. That wage increase percentage is four points lower than two years ago (5.4% in 2023), but slightly higher than the previous year (1.0% in 2024) (Chart 1).
Additionally, this wage increase is lower than the wage increase data tracked by the US Federal Reserve 2, which reports yearly wage increases of 4.2% for US manufacturing jobs and 4.4% overall for US jobs as of August 2025. With these lower-than-expected year-over-year wage increases, mold builders report weaker hiring demand than just two years ago. In the 2022 AMBA Wage and Salary Report, 86% of mold builders said they would hire new employees over the next 12 months; however, this number dropped to 78% in 2023. It since has recovered and now stands at 84% as of the publication of the 2025 report (though 7% still are not hiring, compared to only 1% in 2022). This fluctuation in labor demand within the industry likely is caused by both economic uncertainty and the US government’s efforts to curb inflation by reducing consumer spending.
Additionally, results from the 2025 AMBA Business Forecast Report showed that increased overhead expenses, combined with lower sales figures, were among the mold builders’ most significant challenges in 2024, which impacted profitability and may have prevented lower hiring levels in the future.
While the survey results may favor employers’ financial outlooks somewhat, the wage and salary increases noted in the 2025 report are not surprising, considering the current economic conditions (and tariff policies), the domestic mold building industry and inflationary pressures. For manufacturing companies facing external pressures on their profits, such as higher energy and raw material costs, slower hiring of new or replacement roles than in recent years, maintaining steady employment levels or pausing pay increases might be necessary to sustain profitability and avoid layoffs in the near future. Unless economic conditions improve for workers, some decrease in wage growth likely is to continue.
Additionally, as noted in the previous report, lower inflation has been critical in preventing the upward trend in annual wages that has been common since 2020. Similarly, the labor market might keep shifting more in favor of employers as unemployment rises, and mold builders will need to adapt to the current market if it aligns with their business needs.
More information: www.amba.org/publications
References
- US Bureau of Labor Statistics
- Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta