U.S. manufacturing, viewed as a lost cause by many Americans, has begun creating more jobs than it eliminates for the first time in more than a decade.

As the economy recovered and big companies began upgrading old factories or building new ones, the number of manufacturing jobs in the United States last year grew 1.2 percent, or 136,000, the first increase since 1997, The  Wall Street Journal reported. That total will grow again this year, according to economists at IHS Global Insight and Moody’s Analytics.

Among others, major auto makers, both domestic and transplants, are hiring. Ford Motor Co. announced last week it planned to add 7,000 workers in the next two years.

Economists’ projections for this year, which call for a gain of about 2.5 percent, or 330,000 manufacturing jobs, won’t come close to making up for the nearly 6 million lost since 1997. But manufacturing should be at least a modest contributor to total U.S. employment in the next couple of years, these economists say.

After a steep slump during the recession, manufacturing is “the shining star of this recovery,” said Thomas Runiewicz, an economist at IHS. He expects total U.S. manufacturing jobs this year to rise to about 12 million. Currently, manufacturing jobs account for about 9 percent of all U.S. nonfarm jobs, with average pay of nearly $22 per hour.

“Manufacturing is going to be a significant source of job growth over the next decade,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. Manufacturers that survived the brutal 2008-09 recession are now very competitive, with much lower labor costs and debt burdens, and so can afford to expand, he said. He expects manufacturing job growth to average about 2 percent year through 2015.

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