Furniture employment statistics describe several different measures: payroll jobs, occupational estimates, establishments, wages, and workplace safety. In the United States, the broad NAICS 337 category covers furniture and related products, including mattresses, window blinds, cabinets, and fixtures, so it is wider than household chairs alone.
Key Furniture Employment Statistics
The most useful headline figures span industry scale, product segments, occupations, pay, geography, and safety:
- In the June 2024 BLS CES table, furniture and related product manufacturing employed 360.8 thousand payroll employees in the prior-year comparison column for the United States.
- In another June 2024 CES comparison column, NAICS 337 employment was 346.2 thousand payroll employees in the United States.
- In the next June 2024 comparison column, NAICS 337 employment was 347.6 thousand payroll employees in the United States.
- In the fourth June 2024 comparison column, NAICS 337 employment was 344.1 thousand payroll employees in the United States.
- In the latest displayed June 2024 comparison column, NAICS 337 employment was 343.6 thousand payroll employees in the United States.
- In Q2 2025, furniture and related product manufacturing had 17,964 private establishments in the United States.
- In Q1 2026, the preliminary establishment count was 18,021 for U.S. furniture and related product manufacturing.
- In the prior-year comparison column of the June 2024 CES table, household and institutional furniture plus kitchen cabinet manufacturing employed 228.7 thousand people in the United States.
- In that same comparison column, wood kitchen cabinet and countertop manufacturing employed 118.9 thousand people in the United States.
- In that same comparison column, household and institutional furniture manufacturing employed 109.8 thousand people in the United States.
- In 2025, cabinetmakers and bench carpenters accounted for 56,210 jobs in the BLS furniture-industry occupation profile for the United States.
- In 2025, team assemblers accounted for 38,870 jobs in the profile of occupations common to NAICS 337 in the United States.
- In 2025, furniture finishers accounted for 10,110 jobs in the profile of occupations common to NAICS 337 in the United States.
- In 2025, the median hourly wage for furniture finishers was $20.78 in the United States.
- In 2025, the median annual wage for team assemblers was $40,040 in the United States.
- In May 2023, Indiana had 1,210 furniture finishers, the highest employment listed in the BLS state profile.
- In May 2023, Elkhart-Goshen, Indiana, had 360 furniture finishers and a 27.69 location quotient.
- In 2024, furniture and related product manufacturing recorded 5 fatal occupational injuries in the United States.
- In 2024, the total recordable injury and illness rate was 3.5 cases per 100 full-time workers in U.S. furniture and related product manufacturing.
Contents
- Furniture employment scale and recent trends
- Furniture manufacturing jobs by product segment
- Furniture occupations and employment levels
- Furniture finisher employment by state and metro
- Furniture wages and earnings data
- Furniture workplace safety and labor context
Furniture Employment Statistics: Industry Scale and Recent Trends
The BLS Current Employment Statistics survey counts payroll jobs, not unique people who worked during a year. Its June 2024 table shows several comparison columns for NAICS 337, and the labels for seasonal adjustment and period should be retained when citing the figures.
| June 2024 CES table position | Payroll employment | Scope |
|---|---|---|
| Prior-year comparison column | 360.8 thousand | U.S. NAICS 337 |
| Second comparison column | 346.2 thousand | U.S. NAICS 337 |
| Third comparison column | 347.6 thousand | U.S. NAICS 337 |
| Fourth comparison column | 344.1 thousand | U.S. NAICS 337 |
| Latest displayed comparison column | 343.6 thousand | U.S. NAICS 337 |
Source: Table B-1b. Employees on nonfarm payrolls by industry sector and selected industry detail, June 2024.
QCEW provides a different view by counting establishments. Private furniture and related product manufacturing had 17,964 establishments in Q2 2025, 17,996 in Q3 2025, and 17,992 in Q4 2025; the 18,021 establishments in Q1 2026 were preliminary and subject to revision.
Source: Furniture and Related Product Manufacturing: NAICS 337. An establishment is not necessarily a separate firm, so QCEW counts should not be read as company counts.
Furniture Manufacturing Jobs by Product Segment
The CES detail shows how employment is distributed across manufacturing groups. These are payroll employment measures from the prior-year comparison column of the June 2024 table, and some groupings include related products beyond furniture alone.
| Manufacturing group | Employment | Geography and period |
|---|---|---|
| Household and institutional furniture plus kitchen cabinets | 228.7 thousand | U.S., June 2024 table prior-year comparison |
| Wood kitchen cabinets and countertops | 118.9 thousand | U.S., June 2024 table prior-year comparison |
| Household and institutional furniture | 109.8 thousand | U.S., June 2024 table prior-year comparison |
| Upholstered household furniture | 47.9 thousand | U.S., June 2024 table prior-year comparison |
| Nonupholstered household and institutional furniture | 61.9 thousand | U.S., June 2024 table prior-year comparison |
Source: Table B-1b. Employees on nonfarm payrolls by industry sector and selected industry detail, June 2024.
The office and related-products group employed 132.1 thousand people in the same comparison column. Within it, office furniture and custom architectural woodwork and millwork accounted for 63.3 thousand, while showcases, partitions, shelving, lockers, and other furniture-related products accounted for 68.8 thousand.
The source cautions that the 63.3-thousand grouping is broader than office furniture alone. A later comparison column listed 118.3 thousand employees for wood kitchen cabinets and countertops and 46.3 thousand for upholstered household furniture, illustrating why the exact table column matters.
Furniture Occupation Statistics: Employment Levels and Pay
OEWS estimates occupations, and an occupation may exist across multiple industries. The BLS 2025 furniture-industry profile labels these as occupations common to NAICS 337; they should not be treated as a complete count of everyone employed only inside furniture establishments.
| Occupation in the 2025 profile | Estimated jobs | Geography |
|---|---|---|
| Cabinetmakers and bench carpenters | 56,210 | U.S., occupations common to NAICS 337 |
| Team assemblers | 38,870 | U.S., occupations common to NAICS 337 |
| First-line supervisors and managers of production and operating workers | 15,350 | U.S., occupations common to NAICS 337 |
| Woodworking machine setters, operators, and tenders except sawing | 14,590 | U.S., occupations common to NAICS 337 |
| Upholsterers | 10,410 | U.S., occupations common to NAICS 337 |
| Furniture finishers | 10,110 | U.S., occupations common to NAICS 337 |
| Carpenters | 11,620 | U.S., occupations common to NAICS 337 |
Source: Furniture and Related Product Manufacturing: NAICS 337. These are OEWS occupation estimates for 2025.
For furniture finishers, the 2025 national estimate was $20.78 per hour at the median and $21.16 per hour at the mean. The distinction matters: the median identifies the midpoint of the wage distribution, while the mean is an arithmetic average.
Team assemblers common to NAICS 337 had a $40,040 median annual wage in 2025. That annual estimate is also not limited to workers whose employer belongs to furniture manufacturing.
Furniture Finisher Employment Statistics by State and Metro Area
The BLS May 2023 furniture-finisher profile provides state and metropolitan estimates. The published state list is not a complete national ranking table, so the figures below identify listed states rather than asserting a full ranking.
| State | Furniture finishers | Measurement |
|---|---|---|
| Indiana | 1,210 | May 2023 OEWS employment estimate |
| Texas | 1,190 | May 2023 OEWS employment estimate |
| Florida | 1,160 | May 2023 OEWS employment estimate |
| North Carolina | 920 | May 2023 OEWS employment estimate |
| California | 820 | May 2023 OEWS employment estimate |
Source: Furniture Finishers, May 2023 National Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates.
Location quotients measure concentration relative to the national occupational concentration; they are not job counts. Indiana’s furniture-finisher location quotient was 4.06 in May 2023, while South Dakota’s was 3.32, with South Dakota employment listed as 140 jobs.
Two metro areas show especially concentrated local employment in the profile:
- Elkhart-Goshen, Indiana, had 360 furniture finishers and a 27.69 location quotient in May 2023.
- Hickory-Lenoir-Morganton, North Carolina, had 360 furniture finishers and a 24.75 location quotient in May 2023.
The Elkhart-Goshen metro area’s mean annual wage was $56,090 for furniture finishers in May 2023. It is a metro mean, not a median, and should not be compared with the national 2025 median hourly wage as though the measures were identical.
Furniture Employment Wages and Earnings Data
CES average earnings describe all employees in furniture and related product manufacturing, while OEWS figures describe particular occupations. Census payroll per employee is another measure again, so these sources should be kept separate.
| 2024 BLS earnings-table position | Average hourly earnings | Average weekly earnings |
|---|---|---|
| First displayed annual column | $27.30 | $1,034.67 |
| Second displayed annual column | $27.97 | $1,060.06 |
| Third displayed annual column | $28.05 | $1,074.32 |
| Latest displayed annual column | $28.16 | $1,078.53 |
Source: Table B-3a. Average hourly and weekly earnings of all employees on private nonfarm payrolls by industry sector, December 2024. The figures are seasonally adjusted CES averages, and the table’s annual-column labels should accompany publication.
Census reported $48.2 thousand in annual payroll per employee for Furniture and Related Products in 2021. This Annual Survey of Manufactures subsector estimate is not an hourly wage, weekly earnings figure, or take-home pay, and it should not be compared directly with the CES earnings series.
Source: Annual Survey of Manufactures: 2021.
Furniture Employment Workplace Safety and Labor-Market Context
BLS recorded 7 fatal occupational injuries in 2023 and 5 in 2024 for U.S. furniture and related product manufacturing. The fatality series has a break beginning in 2023 because of NAICS 2022, so earlier and later values should not be compared casually.
In 2024, the industry had a total recordable injury and illness rate of 3.5 cases per 100 full-time workers. The rate for cases involving days away from work, job restriction, or transfer was 2.1 per 100 full-time workers.
Source: Furniture and Related Product Manufacturing: NAICS 337. The incidence rate covers recordable cases, not every discomfort or illness, and the fatality figures are counts rather than rates.
Together, these measures show why “furniture employment” needs a defined denominator. CES describes payroll jobs, QCEW describes establishments, OEWS describes occupations and occupational wages, and Census reports a subsector payroll-per-employee estimate; each answers a different labor-market question.