Dan Berry, president and CEO of the Manufacturing Advocacy & Growth Network, breaks down Cleveland's most historic expertise: manufacturing.
Q. In comparison to the past, what does manufacturing in Northeast Ohio look like today?
A. While it's not as predominant today as it once was back in the '50s and '60s, when we were a center of real heavy manufacturing industry, overall manufacturing is still a critical piece of our economy. It currently employs about 14.5 percent of the folks who work in [Northeast Ohio]. It contributes almost 19 percent of the gross regional product of this region.
Q. What parts of the sector are on the upswing?
A. We've had an uptick in automotive, an uptick in aerospace production, and we're starting to see some growth in manufacturing jobs coming out of the companies supplying the shale oil and gas developments in Canton and Youngstown.
Q. What is the employment situation like?
A. We added back about 40 percent of the manufacturing jobs that were lost from December 2007 through June 2009. We're still in a recovery mode, but manufacturing in general did lead Northeast Ohio's recovery out of the recession — we've added over 20,000 jobs from 2010 to 2012.
