TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. – The automotive industry is getting stronger each day and new collaborative initiatives will encourage greater growth, Gov. Rick Snyder Wednesday (August 8th) told a group of community and industry leaders focused on regional collaboration.
Snyder made his remarks at the 2012 Center for Automotive Research (CAR) management briefing seminars.
“Since August 2010, Michigan has added more than 23,000 automotive manufacturing jobs, an increase of 20 percent, and the auto industry will produce two times the number of cars it did three years ago. I thank all of you for helping make this happen,” Snyder said. “I’m pleased to see this unique partnership of regional leaders collaborating to promote automotive investment in the Great Lakes region. Working together, we can further build a future of economic strength and security for families across our entire state and region.”
Wednesday’s gathering was Snyder’s first opportunity to meet with the Automotive Communities Partnership, an initiative of CAR to promote regional collaboration that fosters economic development related to the auto industry in the Great Lakes region consisting of Michigan and four states and the province of Ontario.
In his remarks to the group, Snyder discussed several key initiatives focused on building partnerships, leveraging assets and further growing opportunities for businesses in Michigan:
National Governors Auto Caucus: A bipartisan organization of governors that will promote the robust auto manufacturing has been created, recognizing that the auto sector is so essential to a healthy U.S. economy. Continuing in Michigan’s proud auto heritage, Snyder is one of the founding governors alongside Gov. Jay Nixon of Missouri and Gov. Bill Haslam of Tennessee. Each year, auto manufacturing generates $500 billion in paychecks and $70 billion in tax revenues, and the group will seek to explore policy frameworks and developments that impact the industry.
New International Trade Crossing agreement: The agreement, which Snyder signed in June with his Canadian partners, allows for the construction, design and operation of a modern bridge between Canada and Michigan.
The construction and operation of the NITC will:
- Create a demand for thousands of jobs related to the project.
- Open new global markets for farmers, entrepreneurs and manufacturers across Michigan.
- Allow Michigan to maximize federal matching funds for use on highway projects across the state.
- Provide additional capacity to meet long-term demands as the economy grows.
- Minimize the likelihood of an economic disaster should the other crossings sustain a lengthy shutdown.
Transportation, Distribution, Logistics and Supply Chain strategy: This initiative is spearheaded by the Michigan Economic Development Corp., Department of Transportation and Department of Agriculture and Rural Development. It will leverage the region’s assets: geographic location, infrastructure and industrial and operational capabilities. The strategy will be globally focused and will ensure that Michigan companies have the most efficient access to global markets.
Pure Michigan Business Connect: This initiative helps Michigan companies find new ways to raise capital, get access to various business services, and connect with each other with business-to-business procurement opportunities. The effort includes the Pure Michigan Business Connect Economic Gardening Pilot Program for second-stage growth companies.
Five new services were recently added under the Pure Michigan Business Connect umbrella including several financing tools for small- and medium-sized businesses and community redevelopment projects, a new business-to-business network and increased exporting opportunities for Michigan businesses.
The CAR management briefing seminars is an annual gathering of more than 900 auto industry, academic and government leaders addressing critical issues and emerging trends in an atmosphere designed to build relationships. In addition to meetings on automotive strategy, the event includes sessions focusing on topics such as global manufacturing, tooling, connected vehicles, advanced powertrain, purchasing, sales, skilled workers, designing for technology and benchmarking.
Source: News release from Governor Rick Snyder
“…….Since August 2010, Michigan has added more than 23,000 automotive manufacturing jobs, an increase of 20 percent, and the auto industry will produce two times the number of cars it did three years ago. I thank all of you for helping make this happen,” Snyder said. “I’m pleased to see this unique partnership of regional leaders collaborating to promote automotive investment in the Great Lakes region. Working together, we can further build a future of economic strength and security for families across our entire state and region……..”
Security? Seriously? As someone whose job benefits directly from such an increase in production, I am pretty pleased with the news with this isolated snapshot in time….but I am not overconfident in the fragile nature of that success being a trend that will continue.
Why? Look at how much of domestic auto sales are light duty trucks?
OK, so what happens when gas went up over $4 a gallon the last time….go back and look what happened to those light duty sales….they went poof!!! Do you really think its not gonna happen again? Seriously? The only saving grace this time is that there is a bit of a better mix of fuel efficient cars and such in production…but the gas crunch will still be a major kick in the pants. It’s not like folks driving their gas guzzlers today can just trade those in for fuel efficienct chevy volts when there will be few people looking to buy and lots of folks looking to sell.
And that doubling number of vehicles it made 3 yrs ago sure didn’t line up with what my employer had been showing its employees (and its like a $27 billion global supplier to automotive…like the number 3 or 4 largest supplier on the planet). An increase, yes, but it wasn’t anything like that. Methinks those figures are as inflated as the jobs creation numbers for the Keystone pipeline.
Short story….it’s a good trend upward…albeit a slow trend upward that is a comparative drop in the bucket to all the jobs lost in the same sector several years ago. So as slow as it was to recover those jobs….don’t hold your breath that these will all get wiped out in just one quarter when gas goes back up….it’s not a question of IF.