Digital manufacturing is potentially a game changer in terms of the geography of production. Rather than being concentrated in a few states, manufacturing could be distributed across the country. Additive manufacturing and 3-D printing especially lend themselves to small local operations.
But we’re not there quite yet. According to our analysis of online job postings, 45% of the demand for 3-D printing/additive manufacturing jobs comes out of 5 states: California, Massachusetts, Tennessee, New York, and Pennsylvania. That’s somewhat more concentrated than computer and mathematical occupations (about 37% in the top 5 states).