Indiana lost 7,400 jobs in February

INDIANAPOLIS – Indiana lost more jobs in February than any other state except Ohio as its struggling manufacturing sector helped fuel the loss of 7,400 non-farm-related paychecks.\nFigures released Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show that only Ohio lost more jobs, about 9,700, in February. New Jersey was third with about 6,200 job losses.\nIndiana was one of only three states to report a decline in employment for the past year, shedding about 12,700 jobs. Most of those losses came from the state’s struggling manufacturing and construction sectors.\nDespite a wave of announcements about companies moving to and expanding in the state, Indiana’s manufacturing-heavy economy continues to hemorrhage jobs, said Philip Powell, faculty chairman of the evening MBA program at IU’s Kelley School of Business.\n \n“Our economy is a dinosaur. It’s based on manufacturing, and a lot of Hoosiers refuse to recognize the fact that we have to modernize,” he said.\nPowell predicts that Indiana will continue to lose jobs. Like Ohio, he said Indiana is in a tough position because it still relies on the U.S. auto industry for jobs.\nHowever, he said it’s better to have Toyota and Honda, which Indiana is getting, than a dying General Motors and Ford.\nDemocrats were quick to hold up the figures as evidence that Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels’ economic revitalization plan isn’t working.\n“Every month, it seems like these numbers paint a more desperate picture,” Indiana Democratic Party Chairman Dan Parker said in a statement.\nBut Nathan Feltman, chief executive officer of Indiana Economic Development Corp., \nsaid it’s not that simple. He said month-to-month statistics do not give an accurate picture of employment in the state because that window of time is too short.\nIn addition, the statistics from February and even January don’t take into account all the jobs that companies such as Honda, Cummins and Rolls-Royce have promised to bring to Indiana, Feltman said. Together, 37,000 jobs are on the way from deals made in 2005 and 2006.\n“It takes two to three years before we see all these hires, and these Hoosiers go to work in all these great new facilities that we are landing,” Feltman said.\nBill Witte, co-director of the Center for Econometric Model Research at IU, calls the latest labor report “discouraging.”\nIn terms of employment, Indiana’s economy has been trailing the nation’s for months, and Witte said he doubts that will change anytime soon.\nWitte said Indiana’s work force is aging, and younger workers aren’t moving to the state or remaining here to pick up the slack. Indiana also isn’t adding jobs in the service sector as quickly as other states and it remains too reliant on manufacturing.\nHe said he’s been encouraged by Daniels’ efforts to shake up the economy but discouraged to see many of those efforts get shot down. He cited the Indiana Commerce Connector toll road – a proposal the governor abandoned after considerable public opposition.\n“Indiana is a state that likes to do things the way they’ve always been done,” Witte said. “Pursuing the status quo is not going to change the trends.”