Yeah, I agree 100% that I'm more interesting than the article, but that would be a different thread. The article only cares about 2010 to now and they seem to be using bogus info besides the fact that they ignore factory output going back to 2001. If you're curious about how things added up earlier, you're welcome to check out the Fed's data set for mfg employees, industry output, and production wages.
Neither of us has to say that the Fed's numbers are right, but we do have to know that they don't match w/ article's theme of "grim" manufacturing.
Your figures do not prove the point you intend because your figures compare recent numbers with 2010, which was probably one of if not the worst year of this recession...two years after the housing market crash when the unemployment numbers where terrible and when as I recall a huge number of people were drawing their two year long unemployment checks.
To see where we really are, the comparison would have to be with one of our better years when almost everyone who wanted a job had a job.
And that is my final word on the topic as it says all I need to say.