Identification of the Key Economic and Social Issues Facing the Greater Battle Creek Area

Comparison Trend AnalysisLocal employment trends are highly influenced by an area's industrial composition.The greater Battle Creek area's (Calhoun County) economy is highly concentrated in manufacturing.Manufacturers employed 23 percent of the area's total employed workforce in 1993 compared to 13.3 percent nationwide.Moreover, manufacturers contributed 35 percent of the area's total earnings compared to 18.6 percent nationally.In a survey conducted in the summer of 1995, over 70 percent of the manufacturers that responded indicated that the area's strengths included its highway access, Kellogg Community College, the region's four-year colleges and university, and the availability of developable lands (Table 1).At the same time, over 70 percent of the responding manufacturers cited workers' compensation, unemployment insurance, and the availability of skilled workers as area weaknesses.Given its heavy concentration in manufacturing, it is important to compare Calhoun County's economic performance with metropolitan of similar industrial structure.This approach avoids comparing the economic performance across areas as simply the result of structural differences.Due in large part to manufacturers' continued strides in improving productivity, employment at factory centers, such as Calhoun County, have consistently grown at slower rates than the national average.For comparison purposes, we selected 35 similar metropolitan areas, listed in Table 2, that had fewer than 100,000 persons employed in 1993 and manufacturing sectors which generated more than 25 percent of their total earnings.Calhoun County's economic performance, relative to this comparison group, is summarized in Tables 3 through 5.In Table 3, the 24-year period from 1969 to 1993 is divided into three separate intervals : 1969-1979, 1979-1989 and 1989-1993.The earlier two periods were selected because they both cover a complete business cycle.The latter period was used because 1993 is the latest year available for data released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).In the 1970s and 1980s, Calhoun experienced severe employment declines at several of its major employers, such as Eaton and Clark Equipment, which slowed overall employment growth.From 1969 to 1979, area employment grew at a 0.8 percent average annual rate.During the 1980s (1979During the 1980s ( to 1989)), county employment declined at a 0.1 percent rate.In both decades, the county ranked among the bottom five of the comparison areas.Moreover, the comparison group of cities, on average, performed poorly relative to the nation during this same twenty-year period.Calhoun County's manufacturing base lost over 5,700 jobs from 1969 to 1989, causing the sector's employment to decline at an 1.2 percent annual rate over the twenty-year period.At the same time, manufacturing employment declined in the comparison cities, but at a Table 2 35 Metro Area Comparison Group Total Employment