AI & Work
Manufacturers are asking for artificial intelligence skills in their job ads more often than the rest of the economy, and they are advertising higher pay when they do, according to a Federal Reserve Board staff analysis of online job postings. The FEDS Note, “AI on the Factory Floor: Evidence from Manufacturing Job Postings,” by economist Maria D. Tito, was published Sept. 30.
The analysis uses Lightcast data on online job postings. After staying flat and modest through early 2025, the share of postings requiring AI-related skills surged in the second half of last year, the note says, “reaching 11 percent in manufacturing versus 8 percent economy-wide.” In 2018, earlier research found about 1% of vacancies in both groups required AI skills. Tito writes that manufacturing’s higher rate, despite the sector usually being classed as less exposed to AI, suggests manufacturers “are adopting these technologies more aggressively than conventional exposure measures might predict.”
Most of the growth is in machine learning. Generative AI skills “remain rare overall (under 1 percent of postings),” and through the first half of this year they were essentially absent from postings for production workers, the assemblers, machinists, welders and others who make up around half of manufacturing employment.
The pay findings are the sharper signal. Across all manufacturing occupations, postings requiring AI skills advertised wages averaging around 70% higher than all manufacturing postings over the sample period, with substantial volatility that the note attributes partly to the small number of AI postings. For production occupations, AI-related postings initially showed little or no wage gap, but “the wage gap widened beginning in 2023 and has averaged roughly 30 percent since then.” By contrast, the pay gap for postings that require general computer skills has been relatively stable, consistent with what the note calls a mature technology.
Tito reads that as a sign that manufacturers “may be increasingly willing to pay for AI-related capabilities even among production workers,” roles generally considered less exposed to AI.
Why it matters for workers
For factory workers and the training programs that feed them, the note points to machine-learning-related skills, rather than generative AI tools, as the requirement showing up in production job ads, and to employers attaching a meaningful advertised premium to it.
The catch
These are advertised wages in online postings, not what hired workers are paid, and only about half of recent postings report a wage at all. The note says the differentials may also reflect differences in the types of positions, locations and employers that require these skills, so it does not show that AI skills themselves cause the premium. Postings capture what employers ask for, not who is hired, and miss jobs filled through other channels. The views are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of the Federal Reserve Board. The note gives national figures only.
Sources
- Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, FEDS Notes, Maria D. Tito, “AI on the Factory Floor: Evidence from Manufacturing Job Postings,” September 30, 2026. https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/ai-on-the-factory-floor-evidence-from-manufacturing-job-postings-20260930.html
Featured photo: A Sawyer collaborative robot on the factory floor at Tennplasco in Lafayette, Tennessee, in June 2017. Representative image of automation in production work; not drawn from the Fed note’s data. Photo: Jeff Green/Rethink Robotics, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0). Cropped from the original.
