Industries Showing Signs of Strong Recovery
Article by Dave Kurtz | KPC News | June 9, 2020
Gary Gatman is seeing signs of recovery in local industry — hiring signs.
On a tour of Noble County’s industrial parks Tuesday, “We started taking pictures of all the hiring signs, there were so many,” said Gatman, the executive director of the Noble County Economic Development Corp.
“It’s just noticeable that all the ‘we’re hiring’ signs are back,” Gatman said. He called it “a sign that things are maybe better than even we imagine.”
Economic development directors in DeKalb and LaGrange counties also are seeing positive signs as business bounces back during Indiana’s reopening from the coronavirus shutdown.
“Particularly in the automotive sector, it appears that companies are getting back on line. Those folks are getting brought back in,” said Anton King, executive director of the DeKalb County Economic Development Partnership.
In the resurging recreational vehicle industry, “Some companies have indicated they’ve hired back just about everybody and they’re looking for more people,” said Bill Bradley, president and CEO of the LaGrange County Economic Development Corp.
In Noble County, “The wages on most of the signs are $17, $18, $19 an hour —pretty good jobs,” Gatman said. “The parking lots were full in most of the industrial parks we went through, so it looks like they’re bouncing back pretty nicely.”
Judging from his agency’s survey of local industries, most were planning to call back their workers at end of May or in June — and they’re doing so now.
“We did not see a lot of permanent layoffs from this. What we saw, almost entirely, were temporary layoffs” in factories, Gatman said. “When things shut down, they had a lot of work in the pipeline, and that work was still there.”
He added, “At least from a manufacturing perspective, things are probably moving in the right direction.”
Bradley said recreational vehicle factories had been sluggish before the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Since people’s travel desires have changed so much over the past couple months, the RV has become something that people are looking to once again to make short trips from home, 50-100 miles or so,” leading to a boost in sales,he said.
Around 50% of LaGrange County employees work in manufacturing, with about 25% of its workforce related to the RV industry, Bradley said.
LaGrange County’s tourism industry, centered in Shipshewana, also is making a comeback, he said.
“Our biggest concern would be some of the small businesses” with 10 or fewer employers, such as restaurants, Bradley said. “They obviously didn’t have the cash reserves that some of the bigger corporations have.”
“The slowest growth is with the small businesses and getting those back up,” King said.
Gatman said Noble County has grant programs for small businesses.
“Most of them are saying things are getting better, but they’re still way behind from where they were before,” he said.
Article source: https://www.kpcnews.com/thestar/article_b6c0e6c7-acd0-5cd1-8eaf-f36f1429338e.html