Records fall as multiple factors drive industry growth statewide.
Want to know how resurgent the Kentucky economy has become in recent years? Look at the numbers. Led by tremendous gains in manufacturing employment and investment, the Bluegrass State is leaving its competition in the dust.
Consider that in 2024, Kentucky saw its total factory count climb to 6,000 and its total manufacturing workforce reach 260,000 workers. Since the beginning of the administration of Gov. Andy Beshear in December of 2019, Kentucky has secured some of the biggest manufacturing investments in state history.
In December 2024, Gov. Beshear Beshear announced that his administration that month alone approved tax incentives for nearly $1.2 billion in new investments that will result in the creation of more than 1,100 new jobs statewide. The approvals included Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky’s $922 million investment to construct a new paint facility in Georgetown. This deal marked Kentucky’s largest single investment of 2024.
But it’s not just large companies that are investing in Kentucky and creating new jobs for Kentucky workers. Businesses of all sizes are betting big in the Bluegrass State. Among the new projects announced by Gov. Beshear in December were a $5.7 million investment by Whelan Machine & Tool in Louisville and a $12.75 million investment by ISCO Industries, a maker of piping materials, in Louisville.
Because of projects like these and many others, Kentucky now ranks as one of the top manufacturing states in the nation, with over 12% of its workforce within this sector. The national average is just 8.5%, according to the National Association of Manufacturers. When Kentucky set a record in 2021 of $11.2 billion in announced private-sector investment, over 93% of that total came in the manufacturing sector.
“In the electrical world, if you are not ready, the opportunities will disappear. We are prepared from an energy standpoint.”
— Brad Thomas, Economic Development Director, Kentucky’s Touchstone Energy Cooperatives
Kentucky has long been known as the place where Louisville Slugger bats are made and where the world’s best bourbon is distilled, but did you also know that major Kentucky brands include Smucker’s, Champion Pet Foods, Dippin’ Dots and Dixie plates and bowls? Disco balls, Pop-Tarts, Hot Pockets and America’s most popular sports car — the Chevy Corvette Stingray — are also made in Kentucky.
Workers Migrating to Factory Towns
Quantifying the impact of this industry is a science. Hamilton Lombard, demographer at the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia, noted that “in 2020, for the first time since the mid-2000s, more Americans moved to manufacturing-dependent counties than left them. This trend has continued each year since 2020, helping boost production growth in much of Kentucky. One in seven Kentucky workers work in manufacturing, the highest share in the South and the sixth highest nationally.”
This migration pattern bodes well for the Kentucky economy, and it is a big reason why Kentucky continues to set records in total economic development investment and job creation year after year.
Missy Vanderpool, executive director of Henderson Economic Development in Henderson, Kentucky, said her community saw major investments in 2024 from Hydro Aluminum and Henderson Distilling just one year after Pratt Industries came to town with the opening of a $500 million plant.
“We launched a talent attraction campaign, and that is paying off for us,” she says. “We take high school students and middle school students on manufacturing tours. We make them aware of great opportunities in manufacturing. We continue to work on site development to attract new manufacturing projects; and we will launch a full marketing campaign soon for the new Sandy Watkins site in Henderson.”
Located in the MSA of Evansville, Indiana, Henderson is part of the new Interstate 69 Corridor that is being constructed through the American Heartland and will ultimately run all the way from Canada to Mexico.
“More trucks will come through here after the completion of the I-69 Ohio River Crossing bridge. We will be connected by truck to markets like Indianapolis, Memphis and Texas,” said Vanderpool. “Projected timelines are 2029 to 2030 for completion of the bridge.”
Powering Up for Big Plants
Brad Thomas, economic development director for Kentucky’s Touchstone Energy Cooperatives, said Kentucky wins manufacturing projects because “we are in the center of the population of the U.S. and our logistical advantages to move products are so prominent. We make the pieces and the parts that make the world go round.”
The largest project that East Kentucky Power Cooperative (EKPC) served in 2024, was the 1,600-job, $712 million Shelbyville Battery Manufacturing complex in Shelby County.
“This is a manufacturing project owned by Canadian Solar to build a grid storage battery complex. It will provide stability in the ever-changing electric grid world,” he said. “We were able to meet the speed-to-market timelines that these companies have. We are building transmission to the building and locating a new substation there. We are running on a record pace to get them operational at 65 megawatts in less than a year in a million-square-foot building.”
To serve projects like this, EKPC is moving other power infrastructure projects forward, he said. Among them:
Two new solar facilities in Fayette and Marion counties will produce 136MW.
New reciprocating internal combustion engine (RICE) generators will produce 214 MW of power when they become operational in Casey County.
EKPC is in line to receive $1.4 billion in federal grants and loans under the USDA’s Empowering Rural America (New ERA) program for 757MW of renewable energy generation and associated transmission projects.
A two-on-one Combined Cycle Gas Turbine Generating Facility will be constructed at the John Sherman Cooper Station in Somerset and will generate 745 MW.
“We continue to build out generation with new solar facilities and new combined cycle plants,” Thomas said. “In the electrical world, if you are not ready, the opportunities will disappear. We are prepared from an energy standpoint.”
Preparedness is evident throughout Kentucky as manufacturers announce plans to invest, expand production and hire workers. These include Kitchen Food Company investing $69 million to build a plant in Hopkinsville and create 925 jobs; Cinis Fertilizer building a $109.2 million factory and creating 65 jobs in Hopkinsville; and Stellar Snacks cutting the ribbon on the largest economic development project in West Louisville in more than two decades.
