Kokomo Forecast 2012.

• Author: Parkison, Kathy

While Kokomo is celebrating a new laboratory at Delphi and the Indiana Chamber of Commerce naming it as the "Community of the Year," its economy still remains heavily weighted toward manufacturing. Employment in manufacturing industries peaked statewide in June 2000, and while recent losses have been much less than they were in 2009 (with some months even posting gains), manufacturing employment has still not regained anywhere close to its peak (see Figure 1).

The Kokomo area remains heavily invested in industrial production and is very subject to economic disruptions as industrial production fluctuates. The critical news is that many of these job losses will be permanent due to increasing productivity, job losses to overseas and the troubles in the automobile industry. This means that manufacturing production, while increasing somewhat, is unlikely to return to the glory days of the past.

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Overall, Kokomo's labor force (defined as those employed and those seeking employment) is smaller than in 2001. The decrease in the labor force numbers from 50f000 in 2001 to 42,500 in 2011 means that there are clearly fewer people in the area. Employment has also decreased in that same 10-year time period (see Figure 2).

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The unemployment rate, while still higher than the state average, is nowhere near the highs of a few years ago (see Figure 3). In the data collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, many industries are showing a slight increase in employment.

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Even if job growth is occurring, it is not in the same high-paying industries that drove the Kokomo economy for so...