The Business Journal issued a report early this month on regarding the manufacturing job loss data over the last 5 years.
You can read it here.Here are some highlights.
In the last 5 years, every single state has lost manufacturing jobs. Not one state has been spared.
Only 3 states managed to keep their job losses below 2,000.
Nevada has lost over 1/4 of their manufacturing jobs.
Our own state has lost nearly 15% of manufacturing jobs. In our town, 2 manufacturing plants have closed in the last 5 years: Avery Dennison, which makes specialty tapes and paper products and Ingersoll Rand.
In 1985, IR was the single largest employer here. 5 years ago Avery Dennison employed a huge number of workers.
Avery Dennison has one corporate office remaining in town. A very good friend of ours is it's Marketing Director. He spends 9 months out of the year at the plants in Vietnam, Thailand, China, and India. He anticipates that the company will move all it's plants overseas in the next 5 years.
IR moved it's corporate office to North Carolina 2 years ago. They closed over 30 plants then and now have about 45 left in the U.S. They now have about 30 in Asia.
We have one other manufacturing company in town, Mill's Pride Cabinetry. They used to manufacture ready made cabinets for Home Depot. 2 years ago, Home Depot canceled their contract that they had for many, many years. A lot of people were laid off. There business practices were horrible. 6 day work weeks. 3 late to work days, and you could be fired. Absolutely NO ONE could take off on a work day for a sick child or parent. I knew many people who lost their jobs because of this.
Cargill-Taylor Meat employs about 1,000 people. But it is about an hours drive from here. 8 hour shifts, 7 days a week. Last year, they laid off about 1/4 of there force. Friends of ours down the street, a couple, both worked there. They both were laid off. The husband now draws disability because he couldn't find meaningful work.
What we have left is a CVS Distribution Center. My friend works there. $10.50 per hour stocking shelves, stocking pallets, or making orders. But I heard that some CVS Distribution centers were laying off workers in some states. Our center was built about 2 years ago.
What is driving our economy now is natural gas drilling. We have about 5 companies who, over the last 5 years, have moved in and set up shop. However, due to the warm winter last year and probably this year, demand for gas is low. Reservoirs are full. They have pretty much fracked all the land they can for now. 3 companies have moved on and left behind shell staff to run the plants left behind. My next door neighbor's son works for one of these. 7 days a week, 12 hours a day. Time off by request only. Every month, workers get a 3 day off pass. My sister-in-law, who lives in Alabama, has a brother who is up here now working like a slave. Of course, they are Protestants and think this is good for him. He works all the time and sends his money home. He "stays out of trouble."
To support the gas economy, we now have 5 hotels. 2 years ago, we had 1.
The only other employer we have is our hospital and nursing homes.
I live in small town, middle-class America. It is dead.
There are people who have benefited from this gas drilling. Those who have property have gotten millions. Those who are working, now work 80 hrs a week. We have work camps where men have left their families behind to come to work.
This is the new America.