Fort Wayne.

• Author: Stafford, John
• Position: Indiana Metro Areas - Economic indicators

The economic downturn during the early portion of this decade hit the northeast Indiana employment base with a hammer. The Fort Wayne Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA)--for purposes of this article, we will use the old definition of the MSA (including Adams, Allen, De Kalb, Huntington, Wells, and Whitley counties)--lost jobs at a rate approximately twice that of the state of Indiana from the point of peak employment (March 2000 for the Fort Wayne MSA and May 2000 for the state) through September 2004. The MSA lost 6 percent of its employment base, as identified in the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Current Employment Statistics (CES), compared with a 3.3 percent drop in employment across all of Indiana. For the Fort Wayne MSA, that represented a loss of 16,750 jobs.

Not surprisingly, the vast majority of jobs lost were in the manufacturing sector--both statewide and in northeast Indiana. Between February 2000 and September 2004, manufacturing employment in the Fort Wayne MSA was down by 15,740 jobs. That is a 21 percent decline in the industrial sector--even steeper than the 15 percent manufacturing employment decline experienced statewide. Durable goods manufacturing was hit the hardest, losing 13,600 jobs in the MSA between March 2000 and September 2004.

Job loss in Indiana began to level off in late 2002 and throughout 2003. Between September 2002 and September 2003, Indiana experienced a net loss of 6,000 jobs; but the Fort Wayne area continued to lose jobs at a much faster pace, with a net loss exceeding 6,500. For the twelve-month period leading up to last year's forecast, job loss in Indiana (after factoring out the Fort Wayne MSA) had come to a halt. But the pain continued in this corner of the state.

However, during the past twelve months, the news has been better--modestly better--for both the state and for northeast Indiana. During that period, Indiana gained approximately 14,000 jobs, and the Fort Wayne MSA gain included 2,475 of that total. Given that this MSA represents about 8.3 percent of the total state population, the Fort Wayne area more than doubled the proportion of state employment growth it might have expected to share. Nearly half of that regional gain was in the educational and health services sector. Another 500 jobs were created in the leisure and hospitality sector.

The key question for northeast Indiana is whether we can regain a significant portion of those manufacturing jobs lost in the downturn. We have done...