2025 has been a wild ride for manufacturers. Tariffs, uncertainty and fast-changing regulations are among the manufacturing industry trends that have shaken up the playing field and left many leaders hesitant to make any big moves.
To help you better navigate this environment, Wipfli surveyed 249 manufacturing businesses with revenues ranging from under $5 million to over $75 million to find out more about how they’re approaching today’s challenges.
Based on that data, here are six key trends shaping the manufacturing industry as the calendar heads toward the end of 2025.
1. Manufacturing leaders are less confident and more worried in 2025.
Overall, confidence has gone down since the start of 2025. Manufacturers now worry about the negative impact of tariffs, are concerned about the rising cost of doing business and fear that a recession might be coming.
- 70% of manufacturers cite raw material tariffs as their largest concern.
- 63% state that the higher cost of doing business also continues to be a source of worry.
- 58% fear a recession, due to lower demand across the vast majority of manufacturers.
- Inflation and the related upward wage pressures remain a concern, but have reduced in severity compared with 2024.
This decline follows a trend in reported confidence over the last few years. Beginning in 2020, the industry has navigated COVID-19, followed by dramatic growth in consumer demand and supply chain issues, and now tariff and trade uncertainty.
Manufacturer confidence did begin moving upward in 2024, prior to the U.S. election, but as of Q2 2025, this sentiment dropped significantly.
2. Manufacturing capacity utilization falls.
Manufacturers across nearly all process types report that capacity utilization is down so far in 2025. This is because customers, driven by uncertainty, are waiting to launch new products or increase inventory. This is true for customers in almost every industry, too.
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