If Auto Jobs Aren't Coming Back, Where Are New Jobs Coming From?
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Michigan Economic Development Corporation's Jim Epolito
Mitt Romney won the Republican Presidential primary in Michigan with a pledge to work to retain automotive jobs.
Mitt Romney won the Republican Presidential primary in Michigan with a pledge to work to retain automotive jobs.
Barack Obama met with automakers recently and explored the future of the industry.
However, almost everybody agrees with John McCain's unpopular statement that "those jobs aren't coming back."
Well, that begs the question: Where are the jobs of the future going to come from?
UAW President Ron Gettelfinger was in town recently telling how the new union contract with the Big 3 will save about $1,000 per car.
That's great, but the Big 3's market share has been steadily shrinking, along with jobs in the tri-county area of Bay-Saginaw-Midland, for years.
Saving $1,000 a car by creating a new lower pay grade for entry-level autoworkers is a key strategy and will help equalize competitive factors with the Japanese and other global car-makers.
But it probably won't reverse the trend of auto job losses to overseas.
Michigan has a new focus for industry, promoted in national television ads by actor Jeff Daniels, by Gov. Jennifer Granholm and the Michigan Economic Development Corporation's Jim Epolito.
That growth strategy is aimed at photovoltaic (solar) energy. And, because Dow Corning's Hemlock Semiconductor plant in Saginaw County makes most of the components necessary for solar panels, this area has the potential to become the world headquarters in that field.
And the fortunes of Bay City's fast-growing Carbone of America, Ultra Carbon Division, are linked to the Hemlock plant because it produces the purified graphite used in semiconductor manufacturing. Carbone is also expanding with future additions anticipated.
Nothing this big has happened in Michigan since landlookers found the world's finest and most abundant timber here in the early 1800s, creating more wealth than the Gold Rush. A natural progression was the use of that wealth to fund world-class education and become a world center of metal working and a variety of industrial spin-offs.
Gov. Granholm was in Washington last weekend for the winter meeting of the National Governors Association that zeroed in on alternative energy. She has outlined an aggressive alternative energy agenda to transform Michigan's economy and create jobs.
Almost un-noticed was a trip to the state last year by President Bush, who visited a solar manufacturing facility in Auburn Hills seeking support for new energy initiatives to ease U.S. dependence on foreign oil.
The President toured Uni-Solar Ovonics thin film photovoltaic (PV) plant in Auburn Hills and noted that solar has reached commercial scale.
Ironically, Michigan, which is a marginal producer of solar power because of a lack of continual sunshine, can seize the day as the center of this growing industry.
An Alternative and Renewable Energy Summit will be held at Grand Valley State University, Grand Rapids, Tuesday, March 11. Sessions will focus on wind, solar, methane recovery and biodiesel strategies.
Epolito says: "Under the weight of all of the rough economic news of late, many people miss that good jobs news is happening here in Michigan. Actions over the past couple of weeks give ample insight on where our future jobs will come from.
Mr. Epolito noted recent MEGA (Michigan Economic Growth Agency) deals to bring new jobs here from a Canadian company and another that has grown here. A new agreement will bring jobs here from Tennessee.
"All of the jobs from these developments grow from Michigan's core strengths in research, development and new technologies," said Mr. Epolito.
Gov. Granholm, at the auto show in Detroit last week, signed an agreement with the federal Dept. of Energy that will create an installation of the famed Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Michigan.
From its earliest days during World War II, ORNL, near Knoxville, Tennessee, has been a government center of strategic scientific research.
A new center for alternative energy research will be created in cooperation with the nation's auto makers and suppliers. The facility will be sited in the Macomb County Shelby Township auto R&D center being vacated by Delphi.
NxtGen Emission Controls, the Canadian clean diesel technology developer, is now considering a new administration and manufacturing center in Wixom.
Arbor Networks, a global computer network security provider with facilities in Beijing and London, chose to expand its R&D operations in Ann Arbor rather than a competing site near its headquarters in Massachusetts.
"Taken together these new job creating developments illustrate Michigan's potential," said Epolito. "We offer much to those companies that rely on highly-skilled, hard-working people in a tech-savvy culture. Some of it builds on our automotive legacy and some on the R&D assets in our industries and universities. All of them say very loudly that there is mother-lode of talent to be tapped in Michigan."
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