New jobs for old

A group gathered recently to discuss the future of the pulp and paper industry asked the basic question of how Maine can preserve manufacturing jobs. The short answer is that largely it can’t. And even when circumstances suggest that it should try to hold onto certain jobs, the effort often is temporary, with the inevitable loss close behind.

It is unclear what sort of salary and benefit package went along with the job of making carriage wheels, but whatever it was it could not be reduced enough to save a job that time had passed by. Every year and with every investment in new equipment, old jobs become former jobs. The question the state needs to ask more often is how Maine can attract new manufacturing work, whether in a traditional forest-based industry or in an entirely new field.

What happens when a region is not able to attract new manufacturing work is explored in an interesting new study by the Maine Center for Economic Policy. Called Life After Layoff in Central Maine, it looks at what happened to 295 workers who lost jobs during the last several years at six unionized plants — Kimberly Clark Paper, Hathaway Shirt, Cascade woolen Mills, Carleton Woolen Mills, Statler Tissue and Tree Free Fiber.

About a third of the laid-off workers remain unemployed, some are in job-training, some haven’t found a job that will pay the bills. Of those who are working, their pay has slipped by 20 or 30 percent and they are far more likely to be without benefits such as health care. Even in what is supposed to be a robust economy, these employees and thousands like them have gone from good jobs they hoped to keep for a lifetime to lesser work that they might not care whether they keep at all.

None of this is news to the various state and local development officials who spend their days trying to encourage manufacturers to move to or expand current business in Maine. (For a dose of good cheers on this, consider the proposed expansion of Lemforder Corp. in Brewer announced last week.) But what has yet to occur is statewide understanding that at an ever-faster pace Maine must be prepared to adapt to emerging technology and changing market demands.

The Center for Economic Policy had some thoughtful recommendations for doing this. For instance, it suggested that Maine develop a better early-warning system for impending layoffs and that it direct research funding to the development of the kind of work that produces adequate livelihoods for Maine workers. It also stressed adult education and retraining programs. Though it is cliche, a well-trained work force — one with skills that make it flexible enough to move, say, into telemarketing and onto computer-based employment — may be more attractive to a business considering relocating than Maine’s fabled coast.

More than 3,000 Mainers lost manufacturing jobs between April 1998 and April 1999. Most didn’t find equivalent work elsewhere, many never will. The successful political leader isn’t the one who just retains the old jobs but who prepares the state to attract the new ones.