It's unlikely we'll see the end of auto manufacturing in Ohio and the Midwest. Between exchange rates, tariffs, and shipping costs, it's still generally cheaper for companies to build cars near where they're sold. That's why Honda builds cars here. But as we enter 2010, after a year in which the entire industry was upended, where do car companies, and their parts suppliers go now?
Susan Helper is the chair of the economics department at Case Western Reserve University and she moderated this auto symposium. She says Ohio, and American manufacturing in general, finds itself stuck in the middle between countries offering high skill or low cost.
HELPER: Thankfully, we're not at the level of paying manufacturing workers a couple dollars an hour as in China or Mexico. But on the other hand, we're not at the level of skill in, for example, Germany.
In Germany, many new hires have already had four-year apprenticeships and labor unions help organize training. Helper says for Ohio to compete with Europe, both companies and the government need better policies to build workers' skills. Adding to the urgency, low-wage countries are quickly improving their quality.
One more point made at the symposium: suppliers say they are still having trouble getting credit. Many didn’t get the federal bailouts that GM and Chrysler did.