Arkansas manufacturing jobs fall 2.8 percent over past year
Wednesday, Oct 31, 2007

By Jason Wiest
Arkansas News Bureau
LITTLE ROCK - Arkansas has lost nearly 7,000 manufacturing jobs since summer 2006, continuing a years-long decline analysts say is due to outsourcing and advances in techology, according to figures released Tuesday.

Some 6,886 manufacturing jobs have left the state since August 2006, a 2.8 percent decline, according to the 2008 Arkansas Manufacturers Register.

The slide is part of a larger trend in which Arkansas has lost 15 percent of its manufacturing employment, or 41,000 jobs, since August 2001, dropping at an average of 2.5 percent per year, according to the industrial guide published annually by Illinois-based Manufacturers' News Inc.

"Nearly a third of Arkansas' job losses were seen in the industrial machinery and equipment sector - one that is particularly vulnerable to outsourcing and relocation," MNI President Tom Dubin said. "Also, automation and technological advancements in today's manufacturing require fewer employees."

Surrounding states also experienced a decline, the report said. Mississippi lost 2.5 percent of its manufacturing jobs last year, while such jobs were down 3.8 percent in Missouri and 4 percent in Tennessee.

Arkansas ranks 25th in the nation for manufacturing jobs. More than 4,100 manufacturers still employ 228,800 workers in the state, according to the report.

Most of those jobs, 54.3 percent, are in Northwest Arkansas, the report said. The area grew by one-half of 1 percent, or 741 jobs, since August 2006, the report found.

The food industry accounts for 23.5 percent of the state's industrial employment, or 53,729 jobs. Poultry slaughtering and processing held steady last year, still accounting for 62 percent of the state's food industry jobs. Employment in the food products sector dropped 2.9 percent, however.

The fabricated metal sector, the state's second-largest manufacturing jobs sector, also saw no significant change in the past year, accounting for 18,661 jobs, or 8.1 percent of the state's manufacturing jobs.

The state's third-largest sector, industrial machinery and equipment, fell 10 percent to 18,661 jobs.

Sub-sectors showing the sharpest decline include upholstered furniture, down 863 jobs, hardwood veneer and plywood, down 642 jobs and refrigerators and freezers, down 615 jobs.

The Legislature this year adopted a number of measures, including tax breaks for utilities used in the manufacturing process, aimed at make the state more attractive for new industry and expansions.

"We know that manufacturing jobs are being lost all over the country," said Matt DeCample, spokesman for Gov. Mike Beebe. "What the tools have allowed us to do is pursue a larger diversity in the types of jobs that we go after."