Nearly one-third of all manufacturing jobs lost during the recession occurred in the Midwest, making it the hardest hit region of the country, according to a
new report from Georgetown University.
The region lost at least 610,000 jobs. But the report released Tuesday by the university’s Center on Education and the Workforce noted that many of the 2 million new manufacturing jobs expected to be created nationally through 2018 — due primarily to baby boomer retirements — will be added in the Midwest.
In the meantime, the region will have to endure even more job losses as manufacturing and agriculture employment continues to decline an estimated 4 percent to 1 percent respectively through 2018.
The report, which describes the economic and labor trends in the shift toward a service economy, also predicts that 20 percent of all the 10.2 million job openings nationwide over the next seven years will be in the Midwest. Most of those will be added in Michigan, Ohio, Minnesota, and North Dakota.
In addition to manufacturing, the report says many of these new jobs are expected to be in the “high-skill industries of education and healthcare,” which will require new efforts aimed at educating and retraining workers to meet the demands of the changing job market.