Gov. Dannel P. Malloy is forecasting not just a rebound in local manufacturing ”“ he is predicting European companies will soon announce acquisitions of Connecticut precision manufacturers to get a prefab U.S. production line.
Speaking at a Hartford conference in mid-June co-sponsored by the Connecticut Business & Industry Association, Malloy did not say whether he knew of specific deals already in the works.
Excluding Boehringer Ingelheim”™s massive pharmaceutical plant in Ridgefield, few European companies today have classic manufacturing bases in Connecticut, with the short list including MTU Aero Engines, Saint Gobain, Trumpf and Volvo Aero.
Malloy”™s statement came even as CBIA published a report on Connecticut manufacturing with DataCore Partners, a New Haven-based economic consultancy. In a debut index, CBIA and DataCore ranked Connecticut 30th nationally for its manufacturing competitiveness, with Vermont the only Northeast state to crack the top half of the index at 17th.
Still, Connecticut finished well ahead of its regional rivals Pennsylvania (31st), Massachusetts (42nd), New York (44th), New Jersey (46th) and Rhode Island (49th).
CBIA indicated that with just modest improvements in several categories the state could improve further ”“ particularly in developing talent, which manufacturers say is their top area of concern.
Connecticut is taking a manufacturing training program at Enfield”™s Asnuntuck Community College and expanding it to Housatonic Community College in Bridgeport and two others, allocating nearly $18 million for the program expansion. And with Malloy”™s signature as of mid-June, Connecticut is now allowing any 16-year-old to take manufacturing line internships in hopes of spurring interest in the career.
“This bill is in response to ongoing concerns from manufacturers that they do not have a pipeline of students who are interested in manufacturing; that both parents”™ and students”™ perceptions of manufacturing are from the ”™50s,” state Sen. Beth Bye of West Hartford said. “If students could just get out and see what”™s going on in our manufacturers ”¦ we would have more interest.”
If Connecticut manufacturing is being rejuvenated in 2012, it has yet to appear in employment figures crunched by the U.S. Department of Labor. After an 11-month run of manufacturing job gains beginning in December 2010 ”“ snapping a 12-year span of virtually constant declines ”“ Connecticut manufacturers entered June with 1,000 fewer employees than a year earlier, with the sector”™s total employment at 165,500 jobs.
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, meanwhile, noted a steep drop in this month”™s installment of its Empire State Manufacturing Survey, with indexes tracking new orders, employee counts and hours worked also down by significant margins. Still, manufacturers are still expressing confidence, indicating plans in the aggregate to hire and invest in their plants over the next six months. Perhaps surprisingly, for those planning to increase investment, only a small percentage said the recession had resulted in any significant decrease in capital spending.
