Is the Sky falling, or is that an SUV?
I know that human nature being what it is, we always tend to gravitate toward the worst in life, the train wrecks, and then we dwell on them. Media being what it is, ratings are dependent on what people want to know about, so we get what we want - lots of focus on the negative. All the newspapers have been flooded with one catastrophe after the next hitting our automobile manufacturers and their labor forces. The most recent of which is of course the announcement that Daimler Chrysler is making more cuts, and that it may even be up for sale. This is certainly not reason to celebrate. And I certainly don’t want to try to put frosting on a dog turd, but there really is some perspective to put on this. The auto industry is of course going through a major transformation, and on a broader scale, all of manufacturing world wide is going through massive change. But our auto brethren are not alone. Back in September, a giant in another major industry, semiconductors, and specifically CPU’s, Intel, cut over 10,000 jobs as a part of their restructuring. Yet no one is claiming the end of American dominance in CPU’s, computers or their related industries. More and more chip production has moved off shore, yet the design and the leadership stay here. There are many more examples of these changes to the world economy that are reflected in job cuts in a variety of industries, each highlighted primarily by the communities that they most affect, and each part of the rapid transformation and globalization of those industries.
But if you are a subscriber to the Great Lakes IT Report, to Model D, Metro Mode or other newsletters that shine the light of perspective into the darkness, then you know that there is also opportunity here in this rapidly changing Detroit economy. We are seeing unparalleled real estate development in Detroit, we have several creative and technology sectors that are booming, and we have leadership in the region that are committed to making our economy successful in this new century. It is important to keep a balanced perspective and try to share it with those that are getting hit with these changes.
I am confident that as a community we can find ways to empower this newly freed talent pool to engage in our new economy.