Friday, November 14, 2008 9:29 PM CST
OUR VIEW: Job gains, losses affect us all
By the JG/T-C Editorial Board
editorial@jg-tc.com
The closings of two manufacturing facilities recently are a blow to the Mattoon-Charleston area economy.
The Casey Tool and Machine facility in Charleston and NCI Building Systems plant in Mattoon recently shut their doors.
The action puts an even 100 people out of work — 58 at CTM and 42 at NCI.
The national economy has been foundering for several months and these two plant closings are the most recent significant signs that the sluggish economy has impacted Coles County.
The area has had some good news in the form of proposed housing developments. But it is tough to replace manufacturing jobs.
A longtime economic development formula has calculated that for every manufacturing job, several more jobs are created.
The 100 manufacturing jobs create an additional 300 to 400 other jobs in the community.
They enable the opening of several new businesses and services, which inject additional energy into the local economy.
Those additional jobs can be in health care, retail, restaurants and others.
Does the loss of these 100 manufacturing jobs mean that 300-400 other people currently working in the community can expect to be affected in the coming months?
It is hard to say. But there is no doubt that the loss of those 100 jobs will impact the community.
NCI has been in Mattoon for 17 years. The Houston-based firm manufactured metal components for buildings before it closed earlier this month.
CTM is based in Casey. It has a plant in that Clark County community, as well as in Arizona and Mexico.
CTM manufactures light fixtures for industrial, commercial, residential and emergency use.
CTM has operated a facility in Charleston for almost 10 years. CTM owner Jim Yates purchased the former TruServ distribution center on north Illinois Route 130 in 1998.
CTM has filed for bankruptcy protection with a plan to restructure the business. While the Charleston facility is not expected to re-open, CTM officials will work to keep the Casey plant in operation.
City officials in Mattoon and Charleston, as well as Coles Together, will work to try to bring new businesses to those now-vacant production sites.
Jobs are hard to come by, but this week, a couple of projects bring the promise of some construction jobs for major housing developments.
In Mattoon, Capstone Development Group of St. Louis wants to build Savannah Farms, a complex of three-bedroom homes, on the south side of the city.
And Villas of the Prairie, an independent senior living community, would offer approximately 80 condominiums, with a dining center and other amenities. That project would be located near the new LifeSpan Center and Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center.
Both projects bring some optimism along with the disappointment of the two plant closings.
But bringing jobs to the community in these rough economic times is going to challenge economic development officials.
As the manufacturing “multiplier” indicates, our economy is intertwined. The increase, and decrease, of 100 jobs will impact us all.
— JG/T-C Editorial Board
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NeoCon Academician wrote on Nov 15, 2008 12:20 PM:
It is sad but it looks like this trend will continue just as others companies have closed up shop in the area.
Until Illinois, the American public and American institutions, both private and public sectors, manufacturing and services industries, and government, starts realizing that we live in a global economy, and we in earnest start trying to compete, the trend of job loss, company closings and our industrial base moving overseas, will continue.
And all of this has happened before.
It happened to Great Britain both at the beginning of the 1st and 2nd Industrial revolutions when an upstart nation, the USA, did-in England's textile industries, and when the USA did-in England's industrial capacity through Ford's mass production principles. It happened in other circumstances to England by India, and it happened to France by England, both centuries ago.
It's happened over and over, again and again at different times, but with similar circumstances, throughout history. Adam Smith noticed it in the 1700's and it's what got him to write, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of The Wealth of Nations.
And the same unfortunate response has occurred over and over again. Jobs move away and then the "offended" country, in feeble attempts to stem the flow "nationalizes" or subsidizes and protects its key "offended" sectors. And with every time, companies closed up shop in these "offended" countries it was due to a combination high labor and high tax rates and "hostile" government practices, and sometimes regardless of good efficiency and productivity.
For example, and with an example that hits close to home here for southern Illi-noise, with the farming industry, and due to low profit margins, in the USA. In America in 1900, 1 farmer fed 10 people. Today, 1 farmer "feeds" over 230 people but now the entire "farming" industry is subsidized by the US government. And the ramification is that we now we dump our "extra food" on countries throughout the world de-stabilizing their farming capacity and economy.
And in the mid 1900's when artisan-based car companies in Europe could not compete with the USA's mass production car companies, they nationalized their car companies. Later, in the '70's thru '90's, when those nationalized European car companies still couldn't compete, they got bought up by American car companies real cheap. The American car companies did this to try to stem the tide of upstart Asian car manufacturers.
And not to mention that Detroit automakers are facing this situation now with Japanese companies in the southern part of the US.
So, unless folks in the USA wake up and decide they dont want a lower standard of living (which is already happening) and that they want to compete, considering themselves as entrepreneurs at what they do rather than wanting their jobs protected, the USA will follow the suit of every other country in the world that has gone through the same situation. "