United States. The U.S. heating, ventilation, air conditioning, commercial refrigeration and water heating industry recovered from the Great Recession and exceeded its 2008 economic indicators, according to a report released by the Air Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Institute (AHRI), which represents manufacturers of that kind of equipment.
The report found that in 2015 the industry shipped products and equipment valued at $42 billion to consumers in the United States. Even though manufacturers alone account for about 125,000 jobs in that country, along with upstream suppliers and downstream distributors, that number increases 883,100 jobs there. In addition to these jobs, there are approximately 408,000 jobs associated with HVAC/R-related installation, construction, and maintenance that combine to bring the total number of jobs, including contractors, to nearly 1.3 million. Manufacturer jobs individually generated $15.5 billion in value added to the U.S. economy over $10.1 billion in workers' compensation.
A state-by-state analysis found that the top three states in upstream employment were Texas, California and Tennessee. The top three states in the downward economic impact (distributor/contractor) were California, Texas, and Florida.
As with other U.S. manufacturing segments, direct employment in HVAC/R and water heating declined from 191,000 jobs in 2000 to 125,000 in 2009, where it has remained essentially constant ever since. The vast majority of the decline is due to productivity gains, which have increased at an average rate of 2.2 percent per year, rather than a decline in output.
