Jackie Headapohl
President Obama toured the Ford Explorer plant in Chicago yesterday as part of his tour defending the auto bailout.The U.S. auto industry will add 182,000 more U.S. automotive jobs through 2012, said Sean McIlindin, chief economist for the Center for Automotive Research yesterday at the conclusion of the Management Briefing Seminar in Traverse City, Michigan. Many of those new jobs will come in the Midwest, he added.
That's good news.
For the past few weeks, it seems as if there has been nothing but positive news about the auto industry, thanks to President Obama's defense of the auto bailout as he toured plants at Chrysler, General Motors and Ford.
The president finished his tour yesterday at the Ford Explorer plant in Chicago, where he confirmed that Ford will receive a $250 million export-import bank loan guarantee.
"This will help Ford export more than 200,000 cars and trucks overseas, and that means more production and more manufacturing jobs right here in the United States of America," Obama said.
The auto bailout has been successful. All three U.S. auto manufacturers are now operating at a profit, and the industry has hired 50,000 people during the past year.
General Motors has added or recalled 6,900 workers - 1,100 of them in Michigan - since emerging from Chapter 11 bankruptcy last year. Yesterday, GM CEO Ed Whitacre said the company is considering reopening one of its shuttered plants and planning for its public stock offering.
Chrysler last week announced it was adding a second shift next year at its Sterling Heights, Michigan, plant, creating 900 jobs.
Ford announced it would be bringing thousands of its supplier jobs in-house, meaning more new positions at three Michigan plants.
And just this week, auto supplier Lear announced it will be opening up an assembly plant next year in Detroit, bringing 200 jobs to the city.
This is all great news for the industry and for Michigan, but keep in mind that the 182,00 jobs projected to return are far, far fewer than the number of jobs lost in the auto industry during the past three years. And the returning jobs require skilled, educated workers; they are not the auto jobs of the past.
Michiganders can be proud of the rebound of our main industry, but we can't expect it to return our state to economic prosperity. For that we need to continue to diversify our economy and find ways to encourage the growth of small businesses in our state.
