By John Bebow - March 4, 2009
Obsess over today's rough Michigan unemployment numbers if you must, but we're going to turn our attention instead to these six things going right in the Michigan Economy…
1. MACOMB COUNTY'S GROWING DEFENSE SECTOR: Defense contract activity increased by $1 billion in 2007 and high-paying defense-related jobs are on pace to grow from 7,100 in 2003 to 12,200 by 2011, according to Crain's Detroit Business.
2. SOUTHWEST MICHIGAN'S INNOVATION CENTER: Out of the death of Pharmacia six years ago in Kalamazoo has grown two dozen high-tech, high-wage companies. And with expanded lab and office space, the Innovation Center is poised for more growth.
3. MARQUETTE'S DOING JUST FINE, THANK YOU: More than 60 percent of Marquette County businesses recently surveyed said business grew or at least stayed level in 2008. And, for 2009, the number of businesses expanding or adding jobs outnumbered those considering layoffs by a nearly three-to-one margin. "It's not the doom and gloom that you year," Northern Michigan University economist Tawni Ferrarini told the Mining Journal. The Marquette-Houghton region benefits from a growing number of small, high-tech start-ups, universities, a regional medical center and a range of light manufacturing operations.
4. PAST PROSPERITY FUELING FUTURE PROSPERITY: They are names associated with great 20th-Century innovation, wealth, and prosperity in Michigan… Mott, Kellogg, Kresge, Ford, Fisher, Hudson… And now those and other foundations are sparking Michigan's rebirth through the $100 million New Economy Initiative for Southeast Michigan. The initiative's first $11 million in grants this week went to a wide range of business incubation efforts, arts entrepreneurs, a program to put 25,000 college-educated interns to work in Michigan companies to keep our talented young people here, a life sciences incubator in Plymouth, and more. You can think of this as philanthropy. Or you can think of it as jobs-minded venture-social capital.
5. ENTREPRENEURIAL STIRRINGS: Michigan ranks in the top five states in the nation for net new businesses (starts minus failures) and is seeing growth in grass-roots business startups, according to the new 2008-09 Michigan Entrepreneurship Scorecard from the Small Business Association of Michigan.
6. NEW JOBS: Every week, including right now, Metromode catalogs the Michigan businesses that are growing, adding staff, and boldly pronouncing they have the audacity to project growth.
6 Comments
Although we do appreciate hearing something on a more positive note, General Motor's Auditors admitted today they are on the verge of collapse. Detroit Public Schools on the verge of collapse ($140 million in the red), and Detroit's City Government plagued with corruption. Last one out of Detroit turn off the light.
Paul, buddy, always easier to point a finger than lend a hand. Thanks for being part of the problem.
I would like to add:
7. Michigan's wine industry. Michigan's wine, grapes and grape juice products and related industries:
… produced nearly $790 million of total economic value to the State of Michigan in 2005
… paid more than $42 million in state and local taxes in Michigan, and an additional $42 million in federal taxes
… account for more than 5,000 jobs across the state, for a payroll of more than $190 million
…not to mention all the people who come to Michigan for wine country touring!!
http://www.michiganwines.com/
Let's give our kids PTSD with #1 and treat it with #2. Genius!
#3 is indicative of where our state's economic growth will come from…UM brought in Google and MSU brought in IBM…our universities are our biggest, most promising asset, unfortunately, their funding is getting cut.
Let's not overlook our busy agricultural industry as a whole. People worldwide gotta eat and we've got some of the hemisphere's best farm land, as Michigan's second-biggest business.
I realize it's simplistic, but even with 9% unemployment, we should remember 91% of workers are still employed, theoretically. We've got to think positively and work toward better days… isn't that what our greatest-generation grandparents did in the 1930s and 40s?
We are still open for business over here in Muskegon! Most of our hits came years ago and we have been rebuilding ever since with a new very diverse economy that includes food processing, healthcare, alternative energy and of course tourism. Who wouldn't want to start a new business while sitting at their own boat slip on beautiful Muskegon Lake? So count us in when it come to being a part of the new Michigan.
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