Gov. Beebe: Manufacturing still important

Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe had praise for how Fort Smith regional business and civic leaders have worked with his office and other state officials on job recruitment and retention efforts.

Beebe, who spoke Tuesday (May 19) at the monthly meeting of the Fort Smith Area Manufacturing Executives Association, said after the meeting he talked to the manufacturing leaders about the importance of linking economic development to education. Because the MEA is a private group, the media was not allowed in the meeting to hear Beebe’s remarks.

Also, the Governor said he talked about “Arkansas being in relatively much better shape than the rest of the world, but that we’re not immune from the same problems. … Our unemployment is too high, we had too many people losing jobs, and even though we’ve created other jobs, other manufacturing jobs in particular, that we’ve still got a lot of folks that are hurting out there and we can’t let up now.”

Arkansas’ unemployment rate in March was 6.5%, lower than the U.S. rate of 8.5%. The Fort Smith metro unemployment rate was 7.3%.

And indeed there are many people out of work in Arkansas. The March 2009 report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics showed there were 88,927 Arkansans unemployed, up more than 35% over the 65,430 who were unemployed in March 2008.

FORT SMITH EFFORTS
When asked what officials in the Fort Smith region should do to improve the regional economy, Beebe said Fort Smith officials are “working well” with state agencies and his office. He said the joint regional cooperation should continue if the region wants to be successful.

“Fort Smith is actually putting itself in a posture and a position to be very competitive,” Beebe said. “I can’t say enough about what Fort Smith is doing right now on working on potential economic development expansion … working with the state.”

MANUFACTURING FUTURE
Arkansas’ manufacturing sector has taken a hit in the past two years. There were 168,600 Arkansans employed in manufacturing as of March 2009, a 16.2% decline from the 201,200 employed in the sector in March 2007. In the Fort Smith metro area, manufacturing employment fell from 27,100 in March 2007 to 23,100 in March 2009, a 14.7% decline.

But despite some calls for Arkansas to diversify its job base by moving away from manufacturing, Beebe says manufacturing is important and has a role to play in Arkansas’ economy.

“I don’t think so. No, I don’t think so,” Beebe quickly responded when asked about moving away from manufacturing. “I think there is room for growth in manufacturing. … I don’t want to move away from manufacturing. I want to augment it by creating even more jobs in different kinds of arenas, but not to the exclusion of manufacturing.”

Beebe said state economic development efforts have created about 18,000 manufacturing jobs in the past two years.

“That’s a huge number. Can you imagine where we’d be without that?” Beebe noted.