By Brad Cairns, Owner of Stolbek
Adoption of factory automation and robotics keeps climbing, even as the woodworking labor pool shrinks. The statistics below are drawn from named industry and government sources and updated for 2026, with each figure attributed so you can cite it with confidence. For the workforce side of the picture, see the companion data on the woodworking labor shortage.
The United States manufacturing industry could need as many as 3.8 million workers between 2024 and 2033, and more than half of those jobs, about 1.9 million, could go unfilled if the workforce gap is not closed. This is according to a 2024 study by Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute.
The US manufacturing industry could need as many as 3.8 million workers between 2024 and 2033.
Source: Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute, 2024.
More than 5 in 10, or about 1.9 million, of those manufacturing jobs could go unfilled if workforce challenges are not addressed.
Source: Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute, 2024.
65 percent of manufacturers say attracting and retaining talent is their primary business challenge.
Source: Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute, 2024.
An earlier 2021 Deloitte and Manufacturing Institute study projected 2.1 million unfilled manufacturing jobs by 2030, with a potential economic cost of 1 trillion dollars.
Source: Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute, 2021.
By 2030, US manufacturing companies will need an additional 2.1 million skilled trades workers to meet demand.
Source: Randstad, 2025.
In Canada, about 700,000 skilled trades workers are projected to retire by 2028.
Source: Randstad, 2025.
The labor shortage is driven largely by an aging workforce retiring faster than new workers enter the trades. Demand for skilled tradespeople continues to outpace supply across manufacturing and construction.
94 percent of construction firms reported difficulty filling skilled labor roles.
Source: Associated General Contractors of America, 2024 Workforce Survey.
The projected skilled trades gap includes 1.4 million jobs unfilled across seven trade categories by 2030, representing an estimated 325.6 billion dollars in lost GDP.
Source: Bring Back the Trades and F.W. Webb Company, 2026.
About 1.4 million US manufacturing jobs were lost during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, setting the manufacturing labor force back more than a decade.
Source: Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute.
Required skills in woodworking have expanded beyond traditional hand-tool craftsmanship to include CNC programming, CAD software, and digital fabrication.
Source: industry trend reporting, 2025.
The woodworking industry remains large and growing even as it faces workforce pressure. Demand for cabinets, furniture, and millwork continues while the labor to produce them tightens.
US woodworking industry revenue reached approximately 132.5 billion dollars in 2023.
Source: industry market data, 2023.
US cabinetry sales reached approximately 28 billion dollars in 2023.
Source: industry market data, 2023.
The global woodworking machinery market was valued at about 6.5 billion dollars in 2022 and is projected to reach 9.2 billion dollars by 2030, a compound annual growth rate of about 4.4 percent.
Source: market research, 2022 to 2030 projection.
US sawmill jobs fell about 15 percent from 2010 to 2023 as automation was adopted.
Source: industry labor data.
Figures in this section are market estimates and projections rather than government labor statistics.
Sanding is one of the most labor-intensive and hardest-to-staff jobs in a woodworking shop. For a typical cabinet shop, manual sanding represents a significant and recurring cost across labor, turnover, and rework.
The figures below are Stolbek's own estimates based on shops we have worked with. They are kept visually separate from the sourced third-party statistics above so the two are never confused.
In a typical cabinet shop running two to three manual sanders, direct sanding labor lands in the range of 8,000 to 10,000 dollars per month before overhead.
Source: Stolbek estimate based on customer shops.
Every time a sanding hire walks out, the all-in cost to recruit and train a replacement falls between 3,000 and 5,000 dollars.
Source: Stolbek estimate.
Rework caused by inconsistent hand sanding generally adds another 1,000 dollars or more per month in extra material, finishing time, and touch-ups.
Source: Stolbek estimate.
Facing a shrinking labor pool, manufacturers are turning to automation to maintain output. Robotics adoption in manufacturing continues to grow as shops automate the tasks that are hardest to staff.
The top two consequences manufacturers cite from unfilled jobs are inability to grow revenue, 82 percent, and inability to maintain production to meet demand, 81 percent.
Source: Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute, 2021.
Manufacturing has among the highest economic multiplier effects of any sector, with every 1 dollar spent adding an estimated 2.74 dollars to the economy.
Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics data as cited by industry reporting.
As the labor pool shrinks, automating the hardest-to-staff jobs, like sanding, is how shops protect output without depending on a workforce that is not there.
Sanding is consistently one of the hardest jobs to staff and keep staffed. Stolbek builds robotic sanders that remove the sanding bottleneck entirely, so production no longer depends on who showed up that day. To see whether automation fits your shop, book a short demo.
See the woodworking labor shortage data for the workforce side of the picture, or compare all Stolbek robotic sanding machines and read why shops automate sanding first.
For manufacturers evaluating how sanding automation applies to real production, learn more about Stolbek as a robotic sanding machine manufacturer or compare Stolbek robotic sanding machines.