Manufacturing expands; will jobs and wages follow?

MinnPost

By Lee Egerstrom | 09/17/13

Schult Homes of Redwood Falls is building, assembling, and shipping manufactured homes for North Dakota’s Bakken oil field boomtowns, cashing in on proximity to one of the region's few growth areas.

Lee Egerstrom

Like several other companies in what has become a rural Minnesota manufacturing hub in Redwood County, Schult Homes is both a barometer of the state and regional economy and a testament that manufacturing is in early stages of recovery.

Boomtowns of western North Dakota are helping the entire manufactured housing industry in the Midwest, not just his company, said Schult executive Jeff Wedan. But, he added, “We are seeing a recovery in the housing market.” Some categories of his manufactured homes this year have sales increases of 7 percent; others are up by 11 percent, he said.

There are 39 manufacturers based or operating in Redwood County (pop. 15,972), and most appear to be working through what has been a decade and more of decline for America’s manufacturing sector.

“There’s been some contraction, some shuffling (from communities and states), and some jobs lost to technology,” said Julie Rath, economic development specialist for the Redwood Area Development Corp. “We’ve been pretty fortunate. Our companies are looking pretty healthy.”

Anecdotal evidence throughout Minnesota shows companies are again investing in manufacturing. In time, these investments should produce what are generally thought of as “good jobs” – full-time positions that pay living- and middle-class wages, with benefits sufficient to support workers and their families.  Click here to read the full article.