Thanks to autos, Macomb now third in U.S. for manufacturing job growth

If Detroit is the Motor City, Macomb has to be the Motor County.

As the North American International Auto Show prepares for its debut, word comes that a driving force within the auto industry is Macomb County’s 500 companies that build and design cars and trucks, and their component parts, for the Big Three.

As a result, Macomb in 2015 ranked third among the nation’s 3,100 counties in manufacturing job growth.   

This burst of expansion led to a 52 percent increase in motor vehicle manufacturing jobs from 2010-15, to a new high of 44,000 workers.

With the comeback complete from the Great Recession of 2008-10, Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors operate 10 facilities in Macomb County covering more than 25 million square feet – equal to more than 100 Ford Fields (as in the Detroit Lions, not the car company).

What’s more, Macomb workers toil in every aspect of the industry – advanced manufacturing processes, research and development, design, assembly/production, wholesaling, retailing, and vehicle maintenance.

The crown jewel, of course, is the GM Tech Center in Warren which, after recent expansions, now employs 19,000 people. The Ford Proving Grounds near Romeo also play a pivotal R&D role.

With this resurgence, the auto plants in the county include five massive facilities that employ between 1,800 and 3,800 workers each. Overall, GM employs nearly 20,000 people in the county; Fiat Chrysler Automobiles has more than 11,000; and Ford is a bit above 4,000.

Based on data from the county Planning and Economic Development Department, here are a few more facts about Mighty Macomb just five or six years after the county seemed to be riding the economic road to ruin:

* Manufacturing as a whole comprises more than 1,600 establishments which employ more

than 75,000 people.

* Annual earnings per worker (wages, bonuses, profits, benefits and other compensation) in the automotive sector averaged $103,345 in 2015.

* Manufacturers add more than $13 billion to the local economy annually, exporting more than $43 billion worth of products and importing more than $18 billion in goods.

* Since 2010, the auto industry has invested more than $5.3 billion dollars in the county through 109 separate investments greater than $1 million (you can see the full list here.

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An apology is in order

I would be remiss if I didn’t, again, point out that an apology is still in order from all those right-wing ideologues who opposed the 2008-09 auto bridge loans provided by the federal government, which made all of this possible. Who can forgive those Southern Senators who said the American auto industry was a lost cause and that providing a bailout, when the Big Three were down and out during the Great Recession, would be like “pouring money down a rat hole?”

Beyond all the record sales and bulging profits and numerous “best of” awards earned by the Big Three since the managed-bankruptcy process for GM and Fiat Chrysler, a reminder is needed to point out that the federal loans were paid off early and the cost to the American taxpayer was minimal.

Without the commitments by the Bush and Obama administrations to save the auto industry and its 1 million jobs, Macomb County today would be a broken-down place -- little more than a Rust Belt ghost town.

In the big picture, Macomb’s success is due to record U.S. car and truck sales in 2015, which sped past the previous heights of 2000 when the economy was burning rubber and going like gangbusters.

Industry analysts estimate 17.5 million U.S. vehicles were sold in 2015. Among the two companies deemed to be a lost cause in Congress a few years ago, GM posted nearly 3.1 million vehicles sold last year, a 5 percent gain, and Fiat Chrysler notched 2.2 million sales, a 12.6 percent jump.

December closed out a great year and it also marked a monthly milestone in sales for the domestic auto industry. Fiat Chrysler pushed its sales-gain streak to 69 consecutive months. Ford also reported their best December on record and sold 2.6 million vehicles in 2015.

So, how did all of this happen? Faith in the American worker – whether an engineer or a finance exec or an assembly line veteran – led to all of this.

Those in political circles who traded in that faith for a dogmatic purity which is more like religion than reality should reflect long and hard.

And I sure would take pleasure to see them lower their heads and seek forgiveness from those of us whom they almost thoughtlessly destroyed.