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Structural metal fabricators

Name: Structural Metal Fabricators and Fitters: employment and wages since 1896
Creator: Future History
License: https://futurehistory.earth/terms

Official title Structural Metal Fabricators and Fitters (SOC 51-2041)

In brief

In May 2025, BLS counted 52,360 US structural metal fabricators, with median pay of $51,330 a year. By the method BLS used before May 2021, the highest count from 2003 to 2020 was 111,620, in May 2008. The earliest figure here is an estimate of 6,000 from 1901, not measured the same way as today's count. The last full technology era for structural metal fabricators: CNC beam-drilling lines, CAD/CAM plasma tables, and 3D structural modeling, 1990 to 2010.

Official statistic: latest count and pay, highest count.Researched context: earliest figure.

What the sources say

Official outlook

BLS projects employment to decline 6.2% from 2025 to 2035.

BLS Employment Projections 2025-35

Official statistic

AI exposure studies

2.3% of this job's tasks are exposed to large language models. Not a forecast of job losses. Eloundou and others, 2023 Official statistic

Data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35. BLS publishes these counts as yearly survey snapshots and cautions against reading them as a precise trend. In May 2021 BLS changed how it estimates these counts (a model-based method using three years of survey data) and moved fully to the 2018 occupation codes, so part of a change across 2021 can come from the method rather than the work.

Last updated 1 November 2026.

Cite this page

APA

Future History. (2026, November 1). Structural metal fabricators: jobs and pay since 1896 [Data set; data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35]. https://futurehistory.earth/timeline/51-2041

Chicago

Future History. "Structural metal fabricators: jobs and pay since 1896." Data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35. Last modified November 1, 2026. https://futurehistory.earth/timeline/51-2041.

BibTeX

@misc{futurehistory_51_2041, author = {{Future History}}, title = {Structural metal fabricators: jobs and pay since 1896}, year = {2026}, month = nov, howpublished = {\url{https://futurehistory.earth/timeline/51-2041}}, note = {Last updated 2026-11-01. Data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35}, }

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187519001925195019752000now

2026

Known then as Structural iron worker / bridge builder / shop ironworker (craft era)

Known then as Shop ironworker / structural fabricator (union organization era)

Known then as Structural metal worker / fabricator / fitter (AISC standardization era)

Known then as Structural metal fabricator / structural steel worker (BLS pre-SOC-2000 era)

Known then as Structural Metal Fabricators and Fitters (BLS SOC 51-2041)

Known today as Structural Metal Fabricators and Fitters (BLS SOC 51-2041)

Projected to still be called Structural Metal Fabricators and Fitters (BLS SOC 51-2041)

Data from the May 2025 survey

US Employment

52K

Est.

Stated in source: BLS OEWS

Official statistic

Report an error

Median Annual Wage

$51,330

Est.

≈ $50,014 in 2024 prices (derived by us, CPI-adjusted)

Official statistic

Report an error

Beat · 1874

The Eads Bridge over the Mississippi River at St. Louis, completed in July 1874, is completed as the first major American structure built entirely of steel. James B. Eads hired German and British boilermakers experienced in steam-vessel fabrication to staff his riverside shops, where workers cut steel tubes and box girders to tolerance and fitted the curved tubular arch members that gave the bridge its unusual form. The bridge was a proof of concept for the modern structural fabrication shop: work done to engineers' drawings, in a controlled environment, before delivery to the erection site.

Beat · 1896

February 4, 1896: sixteen delegates from ironworker locals in Boston, Buffalo, Chicago, Cleveland, New York, and other cities meet in Pittsburgh to found the International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental and Reinforcing Iron Workers. The union draws together both shop ironworkers (fabricators) and field ironworkers (erectors) under one charter. By 1901 membership had grown to 6,000; by 1902 to 10,000. The union's founding coincides with the skyscraper boom in Chicago and New York, which was creating a permanent, large-scale demand for shop fabrication of structural steel frames.

Beat · 1900

J.P. Morgan orchestrates the merger of 28 steel fabricating companies into the American Bridge Company, which is incorporated as a subsidiary of United States Steel. By 1903 American Bridge has completed the world's largest fabricating and manufacturing plant in Ambridge, Pennsylvania (a company town that combined the words "American" and "Bridge"). American Bridge goes on to fabricate the structural steel for the Empire State Building (1930) and dozens of other landmark structures. The company's scale sets the template for the large, vertically integrated structural steel fabrication shop that dominates the industry for the next 80 years.

Beat · 1921

The National Steel Fabricators Association, founded to bring standardization to an industry where every steel mill made unique shapes with unique properties, introduces a uniform telegraphic code for the structural steel industry. The organization incorporates as the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) the same year. AISC's standardization work: standard sections (W-shapes, channels, angles), standard connection details, and later the AISC Specification for Structural Steel Buildings, transformed fabrication from a craft-by-shop enterprise into a reproducible industrial process. Without standardization, every fabrication shop had to develop its own details; with it, drawings could be bid and fabricated by any qualified shop in the country.

Beat · 1941

Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, American Bridge Company converts entirely to National Defense production. The company fabricates components for 199 LST (Landing Ship, Tank) vessels, multiple aircraft carriers, and 77 cargo ships. The structural fabrication shop, tuned to architectural and civil work, reconfigures to marine hull plating and military hardware. The wartime experience with high-volume welded fabrication rather than riveting accelerates the industry-wide shift to welding that had been underway since the 1930s; by war's end, welded connections had become the default in new structural steel work.

Beat · 1979

The BLS publishes Industry Wage Survey: Fabricated Structural Metal (Bulletin No. 2094), one of the few primary sources to document wage rates specifically for the structural fitter and shop welder trades. The survey covers 260 establishments from a universe of 790. Structural fitters earn $7.08/hr and hand welders $6.82/hr; the overall production-worker average is $6.35/hr, representing a 40% increase from the $4.55/hr average in 1974. Virtually all production workers receive paid holidays, paid vacations, and health insurance. Employment in the SIC 3441 industry had peaked near 103,500 total workers (production workers roughly 72,000-77,000) by 1982 before the steel crisis.

Beat · 1982

The fabricated structural metal industry (SIC 3441) reaches its employment peak of approximately 103,500 workers, then enters a steep decline during the Reagan-era manufacturing recession. The collapse of US integrated steel mills (Bethlehem Steel closing its Lackawanna, NY plant in 1983; US Steel shuttering 16 facilities in 1983-1987) disrupts raw material supply chains and raises input costs for fabricators. By 1993 total SIC 3441 employment had fallen to 70,700, a loss of roughly 32,000 jobs in a decade. The workforce that remained was more skilled but smaller: the least productive shops had closed, and the survivors had invested in productivity improvements.

Beat · 2000

The commercial construction boom of 1995-2000, fueled by the dot-com office buildout and the stadium construction wave (19 new major professional sports stadiums opened 1996-2000), returns SIC 3441 employment to 98,960, approaching the 1982 peak. Production workers (72,085) earn a mean of $14.78/hr. The recovery is the last hurrah for the large-crew fabrication shop: CNC beam-drilling lines and CAD/CAM plasma tables are entering shops at scale, and the 2001 construction downturn will trigger the permanent workforce reduction that CNC productivity enables.

How to read this number

OEWS is a point-in-time survey snapshot, not a continuous time series; BLS advises against using it for year-over-year trend comparison.

Each dot is a cited figure over time; the dotted line only links them (values between aren't measured). Hollow dots are estimates.

Official statistic: Copied by a script from a statistics agency table or a published study's table, not retyped by hand. BLS figures, ONS ASHE figures (UK pay and jobs) and the forecast and exposure tables are also re-checked against that table on every data run. Researched context: Researched from the cited source rather than copied from it by a script, so it is not machine-checked yet. Spot a mistake? Each figure has a “Report an error” link.

How it began · 1865

The structural metal fabricator as a distinct shop-based trade emerged from the wreckage of the Civil War and the explosion of iron bridge building that followed it. Before 1865, American bridge construction relied on timber or cast-iron arch forms; the war's demand for rail supply routes accelerated the use of wrought iron and then Bessemer steel in bridge trusses. The Eads Bridge across the Mississippi at St. Louis, begun in 1867 and completed in 1874, was the first major American structure built entirely of steel and it required a new kind of worker: a shop craftsman who could read detailed drawings, mark and cut iron members to tolerance, drill bolt holes in precise patterns, and fit curved steel tubes and box girders together before the pieces were shipped to the site. James B. Eads hired German and British metalworkers who had experience with steam-boiler fabrication to staff his shops along the riverbank. The Brooklyn Bridge, begun in 1870 and opened in 1883, replicated this model: massive fabricating shops on both banks where skilled ironworkers turned raw bar stock and plate into the cable-wire spools, anchorage castings, and deck trusses that gave the bridge its form. The Bessemer process, which Andrew Carnegie adopted at his Braddock, Pennsylvania, mill in 1872, made structural steel cheap enough for widespread building use and created the demand for a permanent class of shop fabricators. By the 1880s and 1890s, as Chicago's Loop skyscraper district rose on steel frames, fabrication shops in Pittsburgh, Chicago, and Cleveland employed thousands of men who cut, drilled, reamed, and fitted steel columns and beams before they left the shop. It was shop work: indoor, precise, drawing-driven, and distinct from the field ironworker who bolted the members together at height. The trade organized formally on February 4, 1896, when sixteen delegates from ironworker locals in Boston, Buffalo, Chicago, Cleveland, New York, and other cities met in Pittsburgh to found the International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental and Reinforcing Iron Workers, creating the institutional framework that separated shop fabricators from field erectors under a single bargaining umbrella.

Cited forecasts · present → 2035

Will AI replace structural metal fabricators? What the research says

Each figure is stated by the named source; we publish no forecasts of our own. Where sources disagree, we show the disagreement rather than an average.

Each figure is stated by the named source; we publish no forecasts of our own. Where sources disagree, the spread is the honest signal.

What published forecasts say

Forecast change in the number of people doing this work, as published by each named source. Bars share one scale on every role, centred on zero and reaching the end at ±30%. Grey marks a small change, 3% or less either way.

BLS Employment Projections 2025-35
Target year 2035
-6.2%
BLS National Employment Matrix, 2025-35 cycle, line for SOC 51-2041 (Structural metal fabricators and fitters): 52.3 thousand jobs in 2025, projected 49.0 thousand in 2035, a change of -3.2 thousand (-6.2%). Matrix employment counts all jobs in the occupation, including self-employed workers. The average for all occupations in this cycle is +3.5%.
Official statisticReport an error

How exposed is this work to AI (research measures)

Scores as published by each study. Each row says what it measures. These measure what AI could technically do, not forecasts of jobs lost.

Eloundou et al. (2023), "GPTs are GPTs"
2023 study · Share of tasks exposed to LLMs (β, human-rated)
2.3%
of tasks
What this measures
Published occupation-level exposure from the paper's occ_level.csv for O*NET-SOC 51-2041.00 Structural Metal Fabricators and Fitters. Shown: human-rated β = 0.023, the share of the occupation's tasks an LLM could do in at least half the time at equal quality, counting tasks that need LLM-powered software at half weight (β = E1 + 0.5 × E2). Other published measures for this occupation: human-rated α (LLM alone) 0 and γ (all LLM-assisted) 0.045; GPT-4-rated β 0.023. This measures how much of the work an LLM could touch, not how many jobs disappear.
Official statisticReport an error

Today, in this role

What's changing day to day for structural metal fabricators

Three parts of your work where AI is already doing real lifting, and what stays yours.

AI is sitting alongside you here Verify conformance of workpieces to specifications…

, using squares, rulers, and measuring tapes.^[2]

Where your edge is

AI is sitting alongside you here Position, align, fit, and weld parts to form complete units…

or subunits, following blueprints and layout specifications, and using jigs, welding torches, and hand tools.^[2]

Where your edge is

AI is sitting alongside you here Lay out and examine metal stock or workpieces to be processed…

to ensure that specifications are met.^[2]

Where your edge is

Tools of the era

How has the work of structural metal fabricators changed since 1865?

The tools that defined the work, one line per era. Select an era to see how it reshaped the work.

Hand layout, riveting, and drilling (the iron fabrication shop era)
The structural metal fabricator of the late 19th century worked with hand tools and mechanized drilling at primitive but effective levels. A fabrication shop received raw iron or steel angles, channels, and plates; the layout man (often the senior craftsman on the floor) used a scribe, center punch, and steel rule to mark hole patterns from paper drawings; a drilling gang used belt-driven or hand-operated drill presses to punch the bolt holes; and a riveting gang heated iron rivets in a forge and drove them home with pneumatic hammers. Hot-driven riveting required a four-person team: heater, catcher, bucker, and driver. The pace was set by the forge fire and the rhythm of the hammer. Precision was the layout man's art, not a machine's guarantee, and fit-up required hammers, come-alongs, and sledges to bring steel members into alignment before the connection was made permanent.
Effect on the work
A skilled layout man needed many minutes to mark up a structural column connection; a modern CNC beam-drilling line does the same operation in a fraction of that time. The gap understates the skill compression: the 1890s layout man carried the dimensional logic of the structure in his head and hands; the modern operator enters NC data from a model. The shop gang of the rivet era was large: a single bridge truss member might require several workers to drill, fit, and rivet.
Arc welding replaces riveting (the AISC standardization and WWII fabrication era)
By 1921 the National Steel Fabricators Association (which became the American Institute of Steel Construction) was founded specifically to bring standardization to an industry where every mill made unique shapes with unique properties. That year AISC introduced a uniform telegraphic code for the industry. At the same time, electric arc welding was moving from shipyard novelty to shop standard: by 1930 arc welding was cheaper than riveting and faster, and the cumbersome four-person riveting gang began to give way to a one- or two-person welding crew. The WWII shipbuilding surge at Kaiser Shipyards and other yards proved the scale-up potential of welded fabrication: Liberty Ships required miles of welding each, and shipyard welders could be trained to productive entry-level work in weeks. That workforce knowledge transferred to postwar structural steel shops. By 1950 riveted connections in new structural steel buildings were almost entirely replaced by welded or high-strength-bolt connections.
Effect on the work
Arc welding reduced the riveting gang from four to one or two workers per connection point. At the structural shop level this roughly halved the direct-labor content per ton of fabricated steel, though the growing scale of postwar construction kept total employment rising through the 1950s and 1960s.
Oxygen/plasma cutting, high-strength bolts, and the first CNC drilling lines
The fabrication shop of the 1960s and 1970s replaced gas-flame hand-cutting with oxy-fuel and early plasma cutting, which improved speed and cut quality dramatically. High-strength bolt connections (ASTM A325 bolts, standardized from the 1950s) displaced riveting almost entirely in field connections, which in turn changed what the shop had to deliver: instead of pre-drilled rivet holes, the shop was now responsible for precisely reamed or punched holes that field crews could bolt up without further fitting. The BLS Industry Wage Survey of November 1979 found that structural fitters and hand welders comprised over two-thirds of the SIC 3441 production workforce, with fitters earning $7.08/hr and welders $6.82/hr, reflecting the trade's skilled-craft wage premium. Early numerically controlled (NC) drilling machines entered the largest shops in the 1970s but were expensive and required programming skills; most shops still used manual punch presses and drill presses through 1980.
Effect on the work
Plasma cutting in the late 1960s and oxy-fuel cutting optimization reduced cutting labor per piece, but the broader shop workforce remained stable because construction activity was growing.
CNC beam-drilling lines, CAD/CAM plasma tables, and 3D structural modeling
CNC technology applied to structural steel fabrication transformed the shop floor in the 1990s. CNC beam-processing lines (combining automatic sawing, drilling, scribing, and coping in a single pass) replaced the manual layout-and-drill workflow that had defined shop work since the 19th century. A single CNC beam line could process what previously required several layout workers and drill operators. CAD/CAM-driven plasma cutting tables replaced hand-drawn template-and-burn approaches for plate work. In the 2000s, 3D structural modeling software (Tekla Structures, SDS/2) began generating DSTV/NC files that fed directly to CNC machines without the intermediate step of a shop drawing, compressing the engineering-to-fabrication loop further. The SIC 3441 workforce, which had recovered to 98,960 by 2000, fell sharply after 2001 as these investments came online across the industry simultaneously.
Robotic welding cells, AI-assisted detailing, and BIM-to-fabrication automation
The 2010s and 2020s brought robotic welding cells into structural fabrication shops, handling the repetitive single-pass fillet welds on standard connections that previously occupied the largest share of welder time. Lincoln Electric and Miller Electric both marketed robotic welding solutions specifically targeting structural steel shops from the early 2010s. Building Information Modeling (BIM) integration deepened: by the mid-2010s, Tekla Structures could generate complete NC programs, shop drawings, material lists, and piece-mark labels from a single federated model, with fabricators reviewing rather than creating each output. As of 2026, AI-assisted structural detailing tools are beginning to draft connection geometry and check compliance with AISC specifications automatically, further reducing the manual detailing hours that flow into the shop. The fabricator who thrives in this era is less often the layout man who memorizes the geometry and more often the technician who sets up the CNC program, adjusts the robotic welding parameters, and handles the complex non-standard assemblies the machines cannot address.
Effect on the work
BLS projects a decline in SOC 51-2041 employment between 2024 and 2034, driven primarily by continued adoption of robotic welding and CNC automation rather than by a decline in construction activity. Output per worker in structural steel fabrication continues to rise even as headcount falls.

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Structural Metal Fabricators and Fitters employment and pay by year

On record since1865

Latest US employment52,360 (May 2025)Source: BLS OEWS May 2025Official statisticReport an error

Latest US median pay$51,330 (May 2025)Source: BLS OEWS May 2025Official statisticReport an error

Outlook-6.2% by 2035Source: BLS Employment Projections 2025-35Official statisticReport an error

View all 31 years of cited US data, each linked to its source

Structural Metal Fabricators and Fitters in the US: employment and pay by year, with sources
Year	US employment	Annual pay (median unless marked)	Source	Report
1896	n/a	$730 (average)	Est., ironworking.com [4] Researched context	Report
1901	6,000	n/a	Est., Wikipedia [1] Researched context	Report
1948	100,000	n/a	Est., Wikipedia [1] Researched context	Report
1974	n/a	$9,464 (average)	BLS historical bulletin November 1979 [5] Researched context	Report
1979	n/a	$13,208 (average)	BLS historical bulletin November 1979 [5] Researched context	Report
1982	103,500	n/a	Est., Reference for Business [2] Researched context	Report
1993	70,700	n/a	Est., Reference for Business [2] Researched context	Report
2000	98,960	$30,742 (average)	Est., Reference for Business [2] Researched context	Report
2003	85,330	$28,990	BLS OEWS May 2003 [3] Official statistic	Report
2004	86,240	$29,840	BLS OEWS May 2004 [3] Official statistic	Report
2005	93,490	$30,290	BLS OEWS May 2005 [3] Official statistic	Report
2006	99,680	$30,290	BLS OEWS May 2006 [3] Official statistic	Report
2007	107,830	$31,030	BLS OEWS May 2007 [3] Official statistic	Report
2008	111,620	$32,400	BLS OEWS May 2008 [3] Official statistic	Report
2009	96,870	$33,890	BLS OEWS May 2009 [3] Official statistic	Report
2010	79,540	$34,530	BLS OEWS May 2010 [3] Official statistic	Report
2011	76,050	$35,170	BLS OEWS May 2011 [3] Official statistic	Report
2012	78,340	$35,750	BLS OEWS May 2012 [3] Official statistic	Report
2013	77,860	$36,370	BLS OEWS May 2013 [3] Official statistic	Report
2014	78,050	$36,570	BLS OEWS May 2014 [3] Official statistic	Report
2015	79,620	$37,050	BLS OEWS May 2015 [3] Official statistic	Report
2016	77,270	$37,730	BLS OEWS May 2016 [3] Official statistic	Report
2017	77,600	$38,450	BLS OEWS May 2017 [3] Official statistic	Report
2018	76,090	$39,290	BLS OEWS May 2018 [3] Official statistic	Report
2019	76,890	$40,390	BLS OEWS May 2019 [3] Official statistic	Report
2020	69,550	$41,780	BLS OEWS May 2020 [3] Official statistic	Report
2021	61,070	$45,480	BLS OEWS May 2021 [3] Official statistic	Report
2022	58,870	$47,200	BLS OEWS May 2022 [3] Official statistic	Report
2023	57,810	$48,480	BLS OEWS May 2023 [3] Official statistic	Report
2024	53,380	$49,900	BLS OEWS May 2024 [3] Official statistic	Report
2025	52,360	$51,330	BLS OEWS May 2025 [3] Official statistic	Report

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See all roles in Manufacturing

Hand layout, riveting, and drilling (the iron fabrication shop era) (1865 to 1920)

Arc welding replaces riveting (the AISC standardization and WWII fabrication era) (1920 to 1960)

Oxygen/plasma cutting, high-strength bolts, and the first CNC drilling lines (1960 to 1990)

CNC beam-drilling lines, CAD/CAM plasma tables, and 3D structural modeling (1990 to 2010)

Robotic welding cells, AI-assisted detailing, and BIM-to-fabrication automation (2010 to present)

Structural Metal Fabricators and Fitters employment and pay by year

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