Summit forges optimism for Valley manufacturing growth

There is bad news, good news and promising news on the front lines of manufacturing in the Mahoning Valley and Ohio.

The bad news comes as no surprise to most: Ohio has lost 34 percent of its manufacturing base over the past decade, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Great Recession and its painfully lingering aftermath have softened substantially the Buckeye State’s mighty industrial muscle.

The good news, however, reveals that despite the losses, Ohio remains a manufacturing powerhouse to be reckoned with in the national and global economies. A recent report from the Ohio Manufacturers Association showed that the Buckeye State still ranks as the third largest manufacturing producer in America, behind only California and Texas, with 635,700 such jobs as of last month.

Even more promising is data released last month by bizjournals.com, a publication of American City Business Journals.com. Its study ranked the Youngstown-Warren-Boardman metropolitan area as the 14th best in the United States for manufacturing job growth in the past year. Other Ohio cities ranking high in that top-100 list included Akron at No. 3, Cincinnati at No. 12 and Toledo at No. 21.

The task now must be to build ongoing momentum for a renaissance in manufacturing.

SUCCESSFUL SUMMIT

Such momentum was illustrated last week in nearby Rootstown, where nearly 200 business, industry, development and political leaders from Northeast Ohio — many of them from the Mahoning Valley — convened a manufacturing summit.

The co-chairmen for that Northeast Ohio Economic Summit on the Revitalization of Manufacturing were the Valley’s two congressmen, U.S. Reps. Tim Ryan of Niles, D-17th, and Bill Johnson of Marietta, R-6th. That bipartisan leadership served as a heartening recognition that bipartisan cooperation will be a critical cog in revitalizing this region’s, this state’s and this nation’s manufacturing base.

Ryan and others at the summit laid out an agenda that merits ongoing discussion, planning and action. Among the issues:

More investment in education and infrastructure to support the high-end, advanced manufacturing jobs of the future.

Stricter monitoring of unfair trade agreements that result in foreign goods produced and sold in the U.S. at prices much lower than those made here.

Consideration of the value-added tax that has helped to turn around the economies of other nations.

Additional aggressive action to mine the rich job opportunities in the Marcellus and Utica shales in the Valley and the state.

To forge sizeable growth in the manufacturing sector of our local and state economies, all of these and many other ideas must be explored on factory floors, in corporate boardrooms and in the halls of the General Assembly and of the U.S. Congress.

The bipartisanship and public-private sector cooperation evident at the Rootstown summit serve as a promising starting point for revitalizing manufacturing, decreasing unemployment and increasing the quality of life in the Valley and in the state.

We’re off to a great start. Since January of this year, 5,000 new jobs — many of them manufacturing — have been added to the Youngstown metro area’s jobs base of 226,000.

It now is up to all involved at the summit and at all other regional and state manufacturing and economic development agencies to add to that growth. By harnessing our long-standing assets tailored to manufacturing, such as a centralized location, ample raw materials and a skilled and available work force, this Valley and this state can jump-start its rich industrial heritage.