Michigan Is Not Down for the Count

If you thought Michigan’s days as contenders in the manufacturing sector were over, think again. In fact, Michigan has experienced higher rates of manufacturing growth than other states since the economic downturn of 2008. From 2009 to 2011, Michigan experienced the highest rate of job growth in manufacturing of any state in the union, and it has continued to add a significant number of jobs since then – 13,084 of them in 2013 alone.

Despite the near complete collapse of the auto industry, there is still plenty of manufacturing in Michigan. The state’s manufacturing output was in the top 10 in 2012, although the future seems to favor business growth in West Michigan and Ann Arbor over the traditional East Michigan/Detroit Metro area. Part of the reason for this this shift is that these regions have more a diverse array of industries, cultivated deliberately in the past decades. Ann Arbor’s strong tech environment attracts knowledge workers and pays good wages, while West Michigan attracts workers in the health care, food processing, and other manufacturing.

While the shale boom has largely bypassed Michigan in terms of gas extraction dollars, longer term, the state’s manufacturing sector stands to benefit from lowered energy costs which will allow for additional research and development and make Michigan businesses better able to compete on an international level. Between 2000 and 2010 Michigan shed 46.7 percent of its manufacturing jobs, but some of those are coming back as production and worker costs increase overseas. Dow Chemical has been one company that has come out strongly advocating for a U.S. energy policy that would limit energy exports and allow petrochemical companies to take advantage of the surplus to grow their industry and create new jobs.

In mid-September two companies, one Chinese and one Israeli, announced a combined increase of almost 1000 new jobs for West Michigan. Dicastal North America, Inc. will create nearly 300 of them over the next four years in Greenville, an area with a skilled labor force that suffered with the shuttering of first Frigidaire and then Uni-Solar. Some of those workers will soon be making aluminum alloy wheels for Dicastal. In Walker, Plesan Carbon Composites will create 620 jobs, also related to the auto industry. Plesan Carbon Composites manufactures lightweight carbon fiber components used in the manufacture of cars.

Expanding agriculture has also created new jobs. Michigan is second only to California in agricultural diversity. Lake Michigan shelters the west side of the state from the harsher weather of the northern Midwest and allows for prolific fruit production. The increase in demand for organic and free-range foods has also spurred job production, both on a micro level and in terms of industry growth. Traditional agriculture is also growing: in April, Herbruck’s, a poultry ranch in Saranac announced it would be creating 50 new jobs in the next three years due to a planned expansion.

The overall resilience and growth of the Michigan economy in the years since 2008 is a sign that entrepreneurship does not only thrive in good times. Enterprising people will find a way to start and grow businesses even during recessions and depressions using the resources and labor at hand.