Rust Belt On Road To Recovery But Long Way From Pre-2008 Jobs Levels

Advanced technology and cheaper energy are helping resurrect the nation's Rust Belt back from the dead, returning manufacturing jobs to states walloped by the 2008 recession. Let's hope we can keep it up and get back to pre-downturn levels not establish a "new normal."

In a recent report, the Pew Charitable Trusts found that states such as Ohio and Michigan and have seen a modest reversal of perils, recouping over the past years some of the jobs lost during the economic slowdown.

One-third to one-half of jobs lost from 2007 to 2009 in the two states have returned, some of them in advanced technology, where salaries are better than other types of manufacturing. Michigan even posted the largest employment hike in the nation with nearly 70,000 new jobs. Overall, 1 million manufacturing jobs were lost over the recession, and half have come back 500,000 since 2009. 

President Barack Obama's push to strength the nation's manufacturing base, especially advanced additive technology, has helped boost hope  for the future, even among politicians who would normally be at odds with his administration.

“We are seeing nothing less than the beginnings of a new Industrial Revolution,” Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett said in a statement raving the new National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute in his own state, according to Pew.

But not everyone is in agreement with Obama's optimism over the future of additive manufacturing in terms of a jobs generator. 

“It looks like a new way of fabricating things that will involve relatively few people and a lot of computers,” Don Grimes, a University of Michigan senior research specialist, warned Pew.

So, we've got only 500,000 more jobs to go. Get to it, America!

Read about it: http://bit.ly/YXWXos.