Leading Industries

PUBLISHED AUGUST 2023

Quick! What are the key elements of Missouri’s economy?

If your first thought was manufacturing, congratulations: You’re spot-on in picking a sector that accounted for 12.3 percent of the state’s roughly $300 billion GDP at last count. So, yes, we do make a lot of things here, from fighter planes to farm equipment to cars and trucks to chemicals and construction materials.

If, however, you thought the services sector might be bigger overall, then congrats again—you are a true student of Show-Me State economic fundamentals. 

The vastly large services sector—aggregating everything from real estate, health care, banking, wholesale and retail trade, utilities, information, and much more—accounts for a staggering 70.9 percent of the state’s GDP. That’s nearly six times the share produced by manufacturing. 

That abundance of thriving business sectors, according to the state’s Department of Economic Development, has thrust Missouri into the upper echelon of U.S. states in terms of diversification—only three other states had more diverse economies last year.

The Federal Reserve Bank says its historical research into economic swings, from boom to bust on a national level, don’t retain their sharp edges here. As a region, we come out of recessions faster than most other Fed districts, and we’re among the last to enter periods of downturn. 

Among some of the pillars of the state’s business sectors:

Advanced Manufacturing: There’s a lot more cooking on this front than you’ll find at the Boeing plant in St. Louis, where they turn out the F/A-18 Super Hornet and F-15EX fighter jets for the nation’s military. Ford and General Motors maintain large assembly plants in Missouri, and have invested billions of dollars over the past decade, a sign of their confidence in the long-term prospects for those facilities. Food processing, chemical production, and electrical equipment are other key elements of the manufacturing universe here.

Biosciences: St. Louis and Kansas City are home to organizations that play key roles in global and national life sciences research and commercialization. The biggest asset in that grouping is the 250-mile Animal-Health Corridor, which starts in Columbia and runs west into Kansas. St. Joseph, less than an hour north of Kansas City, is a major force in animal-health research, manufacturing, and distribution. Combined, that corridor is home to operations from companies that account for 60 percent of global animal health revenues. And the Kansas City area recently moved into the ranks of communities boasting a National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive-care center.

Financial/Professional Services: Missouri is the only state in America that can boast of having two of the 12 Federal Reserve Bank headquarters—one in St. Louis, the other in Kansas City. National banks? We’ve got ‘em with Bank of America, U.S. Bank, Wells Fargo, and Regions Bank. Locally headquartered banks, including Commerce Bank, Central Bank, and UMB Bank, have been spreading their wings to become regional players well outside the state’s borders. And the banks are solid: Only nine states have earned AAA rankings from all three rating agencies, and Missouri is one of them. Wealth management firms abound, overseeing tens of billions of dollars of client assets. And don’t forget the Midwest Value Proposition that allows Missouri law firms, accounting firms, engineering and architecture firms to hold down costs relative to their coastal counterparts, which makes for very competitive bidding on new work with national clients.

Health Care Services and IT: Cerner, now rebranded as Oracle Cerner, is still one of the nation’s biggest names in electronic health-care management and IT—that’s what made it so appealing to the Texas-based Oracle, and it remains a major employer in the Kansas City area. Major health systems (see that separate section in this edition) provide services to 6.17 million residents of the state and millions more from bordering states—BJC Healthcare, Ascension Health, Mercy Health, Cox Health, HCA Midwest Health, and Saint Luke’s Health System, among others.

Military/Defense: In addition to the defense contracting for weaponry, the state is home to thousands of servicemen and women based at the Army’s Fort Leonard Wood in the south-central part of the state and Whiteman Air Force Base near Sedalia, home to the B-2 stealth bomber squadron. When it comes to name-dropping for significant organizations, it’s tough to come up with any that are bigger than the Department of Defense.

Transportation/Logistics: An explosion in industrial-space demand and growth over the past decade has thrust Kansas City and St. Louis into national conversations with big-time logistics and distribution centers like Chicago and Dallas. We’re not quite to their levels—yet—but with dozens of fast-growth companies in the trucking and warehousing space and the merger to create Canadian Pacific Kansas City, the state becomes a bigger player in national distribution circles by the day. It boasts the sixth-most extensive highway system, largest waterway system, 99 airports, and two of the largest rail terminals in the U.S., providing access from coast to coast.