Experts predict Michigan to gain 20,400 jobs in 2011
Michigan’s economy is likely to turn around in 2011 after years of decline, according to economists at the University of Michigan.
George Fulton, director of UM’s Research Seminar in Quantitative Economics, said he has been forecasting economic trends since 1952.
Fulton said Michigan will experience job growth for the first time in 10 years when he made his predictions earlier this month. He said the state should add about 20,400 jobs altogether next year.
“Forecasting is hardly an exact science, so there is always risk that we can miss the mark by some degree,” he said. “Our forecast record is fairly good, though.”
Brian Anderson, president of the Middle Michigan Development Corporation, said he was very happy to hear Fulton’s predictions and he hopes they turn out to be true. He said his organization does not make economic predictions, but he knows Fulton’s group has a good reputation.
“I really hope this signals that we’ve finally hit the bottom,” he said. “A growing job base means it will be easier for investors to choose Michigan because we will no longer be viewed as a ‘sinking ship.’”
Fulton said predictions for Michigan is consistent with, and probably a product of, a positive outlook on the U.S. economy. He said it will be a factor of an increasing automobile market and less trouble in the housing market.
The main job growth, he said, will come from about 26,000 jobs added in health care, business and professional services, and private education in 2011. He also said manufacturing will begin to stabilize, as he predicts a loss of 9,000 jobs in 2010 and then a gain of 9,000 in 2011.
“The turnaround in business services reflects an improving commercial environment,” he said, “including a more favorable scenario for a temporary help industry that struggled until late 2009.”
Still far away
Fulton does, however, predict a loss of jobs in the public sector for next year.
He said between 2010 and 2011 the public sector should lose about 17,000 jobs, including those in local units of government and public schools.
Anderson said even with a positive projection for the near future, Michigan is still “far from where we need to be.” He said the state’s citizens still have a lot of work to do to get back to a stable economic level.
Fulton also said it will be a while before Michigan is back to the economic level the state was at a decade ago, before the long streak of job losses.
“We don’t forecast out (past next year),” he said. “I can say with some confidence, though, that we will not return to the job levels we saw in Michigan in 2000 until at least some year in the decade of the 2020s.”
