Midwest Auto Industry Employment

Thomas Klier at the Chicago Fed has this paper on employment in the US automobile industry with attention on the industry employment in the Chicago Fed's region, specifically in Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio. While the employment in the light-auto portion of this industry has remained relatively constant in the rest of the US since 2002, employment in this portion of the industry has fallen off in the three states mentioned above - even though US production of light autos hasn't fallen off. Klier argues that a big reason for this is due to the loss of market share by the Big-3 automakers to foreign automakers, specifially automobiles built in the US by companies such as Toyota and Nissan. Another related factor is the movement of auto production from the "old line auto states" to the "southern end of the corridor", an area where unions have much less public support.

Link courtesy of the Unions-Firms-Markets blog.