Oakland County had a sizzling 2011, adding more than 23,000 jobs to the local workforce and beginning to make up the devastating losses in employment since 2005.
That positive news came Thursday morning from George Fulton and Donald Grimes in their 27th annual economic outlook forecast for Oakland County. The economists from the University of Michigans Institute for Research on Labor, Employment and the Economy also predicted that the county will add another 33,727 over the next three years.
We see the continuation of a solid recovery through 2014, but with job growth moderating from the unsustainable pace of last year, the pair said in their report.
Their predictions for the countys economy in 2011 fell slightly short due, in part, to the rebound in the auto industry, including the reopening of GMs Orion Assembly Plant in Orion Township. The increase in jobs last year was the biggest since 1994, they said.
And perhaps the best news for the county: the highest number of jobs created were in the high wage category of at least $57,000 per year, the report said.
The county has been investing in the high tech sectors, like their Medical Main Street program, said Pat Anderson, head of the Anderson Economic Group in Lansing. They went through a time when two of their biggest employers went bankrupt and there were foreclosures in even the most affluent communities. With their fiscal management, they were able to maintain their AAA bond rating. Its a well run county with a lot to offer.
But the county wont easily recover all the 168,099 jobs lost between 2000 and 2010, Fulton and Grimes said, primarily because the increase in the number of retirees from the baby boomer generation.
This will reduce dramatically the number of residents available to work, they said.
The biggest growth to come will be in the private business service-providing sector and manufacturing, while job loses will continue in the public sector government jobs at the state, local and federal level.
The report bodes well for the rest of the state, Anderson said.
Im really optimistic about Michigan right now. The state has a lot of forward momentum, he said.
He attributed the positive economic news to a quickly balanced state budget, tax reform which lowered business taxes and the rebound in the domestic auto industry.
You put those things together and Michigan is poised to grow even faster than its neighbors, Anderson said.