Why Michigan Lost Jobs

About 72,000 jobs have disappeared from employment rolls in Michigan so far this year, according to a new state report, which helps explain why so many residents still are seeking work despite a dip in the state's unemployment rate. From April 2000 to April 2003, as the nation suffered through a recession and weak recovery, Michigan lost 5.5 percent or 274,000 of its jobs from a peak level of 5 million set in 2000. Article link.

"Almost every region of the country has lost employment over the past several years, so we're not seeing anything the rest of the nation isn't," said Charles Ballard, economics professor at Michigan State University in East Lansing. I agree. Hefty job losses are common to many of the states we are working in, detracting from the annual performance reports of most state and local EDO's. This is a common problem for most EDO's right now.

Our longstanding job development metric is pointing to universal problems in economic development industry's ability to do its job in this area. Little can be done to budge these numbers until businesses are confident enough to make new investments. While the economy may appear to be job-starved, the underlying problem here is investment-malnutrition. Jobs will grow when investment flows. Write that down. The good news is that we are beginning to see more business investment projects move forward.That should bode well for job development in the months ahead.