Nearly half of businesses operating in Britain's food supply chain say European Union workers are thinking about leaving because of uncertainty around Brexit, a recent industry survey showed.

If you ask the manufacturing and chemical sectors what their greatest blessing has been in recent years, the answer will generally be the plethora of natural gas that has been made accessible to them - and how this has decreased their cost of doing of business.

The freight-train ride from Chicago to Colesburg, Tenn., usually takes a few days. Earlier this month, though, the ride was 18 days, 13 hours and 57 minutes, logs show.

Manufacturing workers are retiring in droves, with an estimated 2.7 million jobs being vacated by 2025. At the same time, the growth and advancement of the industry is expected to create an additional 700,000 jobs for skilled manufacturing employees over the next decade. As a result, manufacturers are scrambling to fill this knowledge and skills deficit with the next generation of workers - millennials.