Connecticut”™s manufacturing sector is at the head of the class, according to The Connecticut Economy, a quarterly report produced by the University of Connecticut.
The report ranked Connecticut”™s manufacturing industry sixth in the nation, with the sector garnering a grade of “A-” on the A-F scale.
“It”™s still a vital industry for Connecticut, despite the fact that we”™ve lost half the jobs we had in that industry in just 20 years,” said Steven Lanza, executive editor of the quarterly report, whose Winter 2013 edition was released Dec. 12. “We think of manufacturing as this dying industry with fewer and fewer factories operating ”¦ that”™s just not the case.”
Lanza, also an economics professor at UConn, ranked all 50 states based on their manufacturing industries”™ income, output, employment, productivity, technological sophistication and market-entry “churn.”
Compared with 1969, there are roughly 303,000 fewer manufacturing jobs in Connecticut today, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. However, manufacturing job loss and employment has seemed to stabilize, Lanza said. Adjusting for industry-wide trends, employment in Connecticut is actually about 5 percent, or 8,000 jobs, above the trend line, he said.
In comparison with other states, Connecticut ranks well as it offers relatively high-paying jobs as a result of a fairly high concentration of high-tech companies, Lanza said. The 2011 average annual wage was $76,000, which was 26 percent higher than the state”™s all-industry average of $61,000, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
As the future of the industry is reliant on more high-tech manufacturing, the state is well positioned to keep moving in the right direction, Lanza said. If global economic conditions improve and economies begin to grow and import more manufacturing goods, Lanza said the state”™s future looks “reasonably bright.”
“The companies that leave are those that can”™t find a market for their product anymore,” Lanza said. “But you also have these new firms coming in with new technologies and new jobs for the Connecticut economy. Even though we”™ve seen a steady decline in jobs, we still have a dynamic industry.”
