Midwest Jobs Take a Beating

Housing slump and auto woes hit the region hard

By Sam Gale Rosen

Posted Sep 10, 2007 9:35 AM CDT

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Midwest Jobs Take a Beating — A for sale sign stands in front of a home in Lee's Summit, Mo. Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2008. A slow housing market will pull down the U.S. gross domestic product for 2007 to 2 percent growth compared with 3.3 percent last year according to an annual report by the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development.... (Associated Press)

Jobs in the Midwest have taken a one-two punch from the national housing slump and the flagging Detroit auto industry, the Wall Street Journal reports. Factories that make the materials used to build new homes in high-flying markets from California to Florida are starting to downsize, following huge layoffs by auto makers. Building material manufacturer USG—based in Chicago—has cut 1,100 jobs in the past year.

The Midwest never had the big boom in construction which is now fizzling, but the region is affected by the slowdown in the rest of the country. "If you have a slowdown in Southern California, it's going to be felt in the Midwest," says a member of a policy group. On Friday, the Labor department said that 4,400 nonfarm jobs disappeared in August. (More Midwest stories.)

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