How Did the Coronavirus Pandemic Affect Global Manufacturing and When Will it Recover?

The coronavirus pandemic has had a huge impact on the manufacturing industry and the global supply chains that support it.

While the consumer packaged goods and food and drink industry have seen an increase in demand over the last few months, unfortunately, other industries haven’t been quite as lucky. In actual fact, the automotive and aerospace industry has seen a huge decline in profits over the last few months.

But what can we expect from global manufacturing in the future, and when will things get back to some kind of normal? If you want to find out more about how the coronavirus pandemic has affected global marketing and when we expect it to recover, keep reading below:

The Impact of COVID-19 on the Manufacturing Industry

The thousands of people have lost their jobs thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic.

How Manufacturing Industry Has Changed Since the COVID-19 Pandemic

Short-term changes that are taken in response to a crisis (such as the COVID-19 pandemic) can lead to changes that last for many years to come. Here are some of the ways working in the manufacturing industry has changed over the last few months:

• Social distancing measures have been put in place
• New employee safety measures have been introduced
• 40-50% of all manufacturing employees are working from home

We also expect the coronavirus pandemic to have a number of long-term effects including:

• A revival of automated manufacturing in the US – Western countries will no longer purchase cheap products from overseas. They will try and keep their costs low by using automated or online tools.
• Changes in supply chains – companies will invest money in making their supply chains more resilient and transparent. Suppliers, on the other hand, will try and increase their local customer base.
• Remote working – we expect to see companies in the manufacturing industry introducing tools that allow some of their employees to work from home. Obviously, not all employees will be able to work from home.
• Data infrastructures – having access to reliable data is more important than ever, so we expect to see businesses investing money in this.

When Will Global Manufacturing Recover?

Global manufacturing output is expected to fall by over 7.5% in 2020, but we expect most countries around the world to exceed their 2019 levels of production by 2024. The countries whose manufacturing industries will be more severely affected include:

• The U.S.
• The UK
• Brazil
• India
• Italy

The companies who will be least affected include:

• China
• South Korea

Evidence has suggested that we can expect a steady but somewhat varied recovery in global manufacturing over the next few years. The transport and automotive sector is likely to be the most severely affected with the food and drinks industry being the least affected. In countries such as China and Korea, where the virus is more contained and under control. We expect to see a recovery in manufacturing by 2021.

The coronavirus pandemic has had a huge impact on global manufacturing. While some businesses are thriving thanks to the increase in demand for their products, others are struggling to stay afloat. Let’s hope that it doesn’t take until 2024 for these companies to recover from the crisis.