America's heating, ventilation, air conditioning, commercial refrigeration, and water heating industry has bounced back from the Great Recession and has surpassed its 2008 economic indicators, according to a report issued by the Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute, which represents manufacturers of that equipment.

The report found that in 2015, the most recent year figures are available, the industry shipped $42 billion worth of products and equipment to consumers in the United States. Although manufacturers alone account for about 125,000 U.S. jobs, together with upstream suppliers, and downstream distributors, that number increases to 883,100 U.S. jobs. In addition to these jobs, there are approximately 408,000 jobs associated with installation, construction, and maintenance related to HVACR which combine to bring the total number of jobs, including contractors, to nearly 1.3 million. The manufacturer jobs alone generated $15.5 billion of value added to the U.S. economy on $10.1 billion of labor compensation.

A state-by-state analysis found that the top three states in upstream (supplier) employment were Texas, California, and Tennessee. The top three states in downstream (distributor/contractor) economic impact were California, Texas, and Florida.

As with other U.S. manufacturing segments, direct HVACR and water heating manufacturing employment fell from 191,000 jobs in 2000 to 125,000 in 2009, where it has remained, essentially steady, 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 to a decline in output.

The full report is available for purchase at http://www.ahrinet.org.