Number of factory jobs continues to shrink!
DETROIT, Michigan - July 13, 2009 - Manufacturing, which represented about 1 in every 5 nonfarming Michigan jobs at the turn of the millennium, now employs just 12 percent of the state's workers, and the downward trend line in that job sector shows no sign of a turnaround.
"What this decade has been all about is the collapse of the economy that made us prosperous during the last century," said Lou Glazer, president of Michigan Future, Inc., an Ann Arbor think tank that studies employment trends in the state.
"We are not a factory-based state anymore."
At the peak in the late 1950s, almost half of Michigan workers - 45 percent - had manufacturing jobs, said Dana Johnson, Comerica, Inc.'s chief economist.
The loss is a sobering slap to a state that so deeply identifies socially and economically with the once-thriving manufacturing sector that helped win a world war, put the nation on wheels, and nurtured a middle class with summer cottages, snowmobiles and kids in college.
As of May, the state had lost more than 750,000 jobs - 15.6 percent of its work force - since jobs last peaked in mid-2000, and that figure will hit 950,000 by the end of 2010, according to projections by University of Michigan economists George Fulton and Joan Crary.
"What this decade has been all about is the collapse of the economy that made us prosperous during the last century," said Lou Glazer, president of Michigan Future, Inc., an Ann Arbor think tank that studies employment trends in the state.
"We are not a factory-based state anymore."
At the peak in the late 1950s, almost half of Michigan workers - 45 percent - had manufacturing jobs, said Dana Johnson, Comerica, Inc.'s chief economist.
The loss is a sobering slap to a state that so deeply identifies socially and economically with the once-thriving manufacturing sector that helped win a world war, put the nation on wheels, and nurtured a middle class with summer cottages, snowmobiles and kids in college.
As of May, the state had lost more than 750,000 jobs - 15.6 percent of its work force - since jobs last peaked in mid-2000, and that figure will hit 950,000 by the end of 2010, according to projections by University of Michigan economists George Fulton and Joan Crary.
