It's Not All Doom and Gloom for Manufacturing

[Jon Katz]

If you're easily depressed or forgot to refill your Prozac prescription, it's probably best that you don't read the news these days.

Even the IW home page is filled with news stories about major manufacturers cutting thousands of jobs or closing plants and moving the work to Mexico.

But there are a few rays of sunshine on the horizon. Over the past couple days a handful of news stories appearing on IndustryWeek.com show at least a few manufacturers are expanding domestically.

In Indiana, for instance, Nestle began production at a new plant that by 2011 is expected to employ more than 500 people. Read the story here.

A new microchip manufacturer formed through a joint venture called Globalfoundries plans to build a new plant in Saratoga County, N.Y., that's expected to create 1,400 direct jobs and more than 5,000 indirect jobs. To read the story, click here.

And regardless of what you think about the plant's safety practices, the Imperial Sugar refinery in Georgia is expected to resume operations in the spring, which will put people back to work -- hopefully with improved safety measures in place. You can read about it here.

In the grand scheme of things these announcements are mere drops in the bucket. Hopefully those drops will turn into rivers that eventually flood the job market.

[MatthewLoew]

Jobs beget jobs. And the reverse is true as well. Now is the time for bold leaders to look beyond the fear and use this opportunity to invest in their companies to position them for the future. Smart companies will use the current situation to make the smart choices to develop new products and jump ahead of their competition. I'd like to hear more stories about the companies and leaders that are doing this.