KALAMAZOO (WKZO-AM) — Southwest Michigan First says manufacturing is helping to drive regional unemployment lower.
Contrast that to the message of Donald Trump, who won Tuesday’s election in part by appealing to those affected by the struggles in the “Rust Belt.”
Chief Executive Officer Ron Kitchens said there’s a manufacturing renaissance in southwest Michigan.
“Vickers Engineering, they’re in New Troy over in the corner of the region, there’s 50 new jobs there,” Kitchens said. “Flex-N-Gate in Battle Creek is also expanding.”
And it helped push the month-to-month rate 3.4 percent lower, which is down about three-tenths of a percentage point.
“Tens of thousands of new jobs, we’re almost at 40,000 new jobs that have been created in the region,” Kitchens said.
Exact unemployment is not known, however. The state number does not account for “disenfranchised workers” who have been out of work for an extended length of time.
