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Plastics and Rubber Products ManufacturingNAICS 326 Overview
Subsector Snapshot | Printable (PDF)
Fast Facts
- Plastics and rubber products manufacturing provided nearly 37,700 direct jobs in 2016, as well as another 9,850 indirect jobs.
- The subsector’s GDP totaled $4.9 billion in 2015.
- Average annual wages in the subsector averaged about $52,100 in 2016.
- Subsector exports rose from nearly $2.6 billion in 2009 to about $4.8 billion in 2016, an 85 percent gain.
Long-Term Employment Trends
Texas’ plastics and rubber products manufacturing employment rose by 48 percent in the 1990s, peaking at 54,300 jobs in 2000. The job count declined during the 2000s and remains just 3 percent above 1990 levels. U.S. employment in this subsector, by contrast, is 15 percent below the 1990 level (Exhibit 1).
Subsector Economic Output Trends
Texas’ GDP in the plastics and rubber products subsector totaled $4.9 billion in 2015. The state’s inflation-adjusted GDP in the subsector rose by 11 percent from 1997 to 2015. During this period, the U.S. subsector GDP declined by 10 percent (Exhibit 2).
Exhibit 1: Plastics and Rubber Products Manufacturing, Percent Change in Employment, U.S. vs. Texas, 1990-2016 (Indexed to 1990)
| Year | U.S. | Texas |
|---|---|---|
| 1990 | 0% | 0% |
| 1991 | -3% | -1% |
| 1992 | -1% | 2% |
| 1993 | 3% | 10% |
| 1994 | 8% | 18% |
| 1995 | 11% | 24% |
| 1996 | 11% | 30% |
| 1997 | 13% | 35% |
| 1998 | 14% | 40% |
| 1999 | 15% | 45% |
| 2000 | 15% | 48% |
| 2001 | 9% | 39% |
| 2002 | 3% | 28% |
| 2003 | -1% | 23% |
| 2004 | -2% | 23% |
| 2005 | -3% | 26% |
| 2006 | -5% | 26% |
| 2007 | -8% | 24% |
| 2008 | -12% | 20% |
| 2009 | -24% | 6% |
| 2010 | -24% | 1% |
| 2011 | -23% | 1% |
| 2012 | -22% | 4% |
| 2013 | -20% | 5% |
| 2014 | -18% | 6% |
| 2015 | -16% | 4% |
| 2016 | -15% | 3% |
Sources: Texas Workforce Commission and Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts
Exhibit 2: Plastics and Rubber Products Manufacturing, Percent Change in Real GDP, U.S. vs. Texas, 1997-2015 (Indexed to 1997)
| Year | U.S. | Texas |
|---|---|---|
| 1997 | 0% | 0% |
| 1998 | 5% | 7% |
| 1999 | 12% | 16% |
| 2000 | 13% | 21% |
| 2001 | 7% | 23% |
| 2002 | 5% | 11% |
| 2003 | 7% | 10% |
| 2004 | 13% | 23% |
| 2005 | 9% | 22% |
| 2006 | 1% | 19% |
| 2007 | 2% | 21% |
| 2008 | -11% | 15% |
| 2009 | -11% | 7% |
| 2010 | -6% | 12% |
| 2011 | -7% | 8% |
| 2012 | -4% | 20% |
| 2013 | -4% | 20% |
| 2014 | -9% | 15% |
| 2015 | -10% | 11% |
Sources: U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis and Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts
Industries in Plastics and Rubber Products Manufacturing
Plastics and rubber products manufacturing consists of two industries: plastics manufacturing and rubber manufacturing. These industries have largely different production processes, but the two are grouped together because plastics increasingly are used as a substitute for rubber due to advances in materials technology.
The plastics industry produces a variety of goods for intermediate or final products, including plastic films, sheets, bags, pipes and pipe fittings, laminates, foam products and bottles as well as plumbing fixtures.
The rubber products industry includes the processing of rubber into intermediate or final products such as tires, inner tubes and rubber hoses and belting.
The subsector’s average annual wage in Texas was about $52,100 in 2016, slightly below the average wage for all Texas jobs of nearly $54,000 (Exhibit 3).
Exhibit 3: Plastics and Rubber Product Manufacturing in Texas: Industries
| Description | NAICS Code | 2016 Jobs | 2001 to 2010 % Change |
2010 to 2016 % Change |
2016 Average Salaries | 2001 Location Quotient | 2016 Location Quotient |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plastics Products | 3261 | 34,172 | -28.2% | 4.3% | $51,684 | 0.91 | 0.73 |
| Rubber Products | 3262 | 3,478 | -21.4% | -22.1% | $56,145 | 0.39 | 0.31 |
| Plastics and Rubber Products | 326 | 37,650 | -27.4% | 1.2% | $52,096 | 0.80 | 0.65 |
Sources: Emsi and Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts
Industry Concentration in Texas
One way to assess industries is with location quotient (LQ), a measure of employment concentration in a given area; the higher the LQ value, the more “concentrated” the industry.
The subsector’s LQ of 0.65 reflects a below-average concentration in Texas. Some areas in Texas, however, do have a high share of subsector employment, including the cities of Brownwood and Wichita Falls in the Northwest region.
The region’s concentration of employment in the subsector is nearly twice as high as in the U.S. as a whole.
Conclusion
Manufacturing is an important part of the Texas economy, driving innovation and providing thousands of jobs with high wages. While the sector’s employment has declined during the last 20 years, its contribution to Texas GDP has risen more than twice as much as in the U.S. as a whole, and exceeded the growth in Texas’ total GDP by 15 percent.
The plastics and rubber products subsector remains less concentrated in Texas than in the U.S. overall. The subsector’s GDP growth in Texas has outperformed the U.S. subsector, and export growth since 2009 is strong, especially to Mexico.