The US ended 2013 with a months-long spree of good news for the manufacturing sector. Total factory output hit a two-year high in November, a hot streak which continued in December where output grew nearly as fast. Manufacturing employment was going strong as well, hitting a high it hasn’t seen since 2011. We may never return to the mass employment in manufacturing of the type we saw in the mid-20th century, but America’s manufacturing sector looks well positioned to keep growing in the decades to come.