KALAMAZOO (WKZO AM/FM) — Local economists say most of west Michigan has now essentially recovered from the Great Recession, some areas doing better than others.
Upjohn Institute Economist Jim Robey says we have reclaimed our losses faster than most economists expected.
He says while the economic outputs and jobs numbers may be the same, there have been dramatic shifts in the kinds of jobs that are available.
For instance there are only about a third of the manufacturing jobs in Kalamazoo that existed prior to the recession.
Robey says while Kalamazoo and Battle Creek are right about where they were ten years ago, Kent and Ottawa county have bounced back farther and faster.
He says Benton Harbor/Niles is still working on it.
It is all relative. They are reluctant to speculate where we might have been if the banks had not nearly brought down the economy and GM and Chrysler had not been forced into bankruptcy.
Saying we have finally come out of the effects of the recession is also like saying, we lost ten years of progress and growth.
They also point out that its important to remember that Michigan just seemed to be emerging from its own one-state recesssion in 2008, and that the base year that they are using as a reference point for the recovery, was not the best year that Michigan had ever seen.
