Indiana Manufacturing Up 41 Percent Since 2000
MUNCIE — Manufacturing jobs might be disappearing because of automation, but manufacturing productivity is actually up in the state and nation, according to a new study from Ball State University.
Ball State Center for Business and Economic Research and Conexus Indiana’s “Manufacturing and Logistics: A Generation of Volatility & Growth” found manufacturing production in the United States has grown by 11 percent since 2000. It’s soared by 41 percent in Indiana over the same period, a stretch when manufacturing production declined in neighboring Michigan, Illinois and Ohio.
“According to folklore, this has been a terrible generation for manufacturing and those who move goods,” said CBER director Michael Hicks, a professor of economics and business research. “That isn’t really what the data says. Indeed, 2015 was a record manufacturing production year in inflation-adjusted dollars. While 2016 fell just short with some weakness in the first and second quarter, 2017 looks to be a new record year.”
Manufacturing and logistics have accounted for 52.5 percent of Indiana’s GDP growth since the end of the Great Recession.
“Simply put, more than half of the Indiana economic expansion since the end of the Great Recession has come in the form of producing and moving goods,” Hicks said.
But employment in manufacturing continues to decline. The study chalked that up to mechanization, efficient processes like Lean Six Sigma and better educated workers.
The United States has lost 7.7 million largely good-paying and often unionized factory jobs since manufacturing employment peaked in 1979.
“Trade and productivity growth shifts job opportunities to other places and other sectors even as employment grows,” Hicks said. “We are at peak U.S. employment right now.”
Source: NWI Times
