Toledo, regional economic outlook

TOLEDO, Ohio - Many economists are saying we may see the economy begin to rebound.
One of the nations leading economic forecasters paid Toledo a visit to deliver his take.

Dr. Ken Mayland, of Clear View Economics, LLC said it could mean a turn-around for Toledo's manufacturing industry, and more specifically, an eventual recovery of Toledo's many automobile manufacturing jobs. He said there's already a stark contrast between last year's economic outlook and this years.

"Right now the economy is making a transition from recession to recovery. We've had hard evidence of certain indicators that have given good insight on this question that they have made that transition," Dr. Mayland said.

He explained those indicators have been a drop in weekly initial lay-off claims,an expected increase in the country's Gross Domestic Product,and trends in manufacturing showing improvement. Mayland said because of the slump in the economy, a stagnant demand has forced us to live off inventories or past production. But now inventories have been driven so low, that they are way below demands.

It's like if you have a bunch of apples, as they are eaten, at some point, you have to go and pick more apples or plant more trees.

"Just to stop inventory from disappearing, production has to increase substantially, so I'm actually very positive about the prospect for manufacturing just as we need to rebuild inventory," he said.

As for the auto industry, "Actual production is far below the scrappage rate and you can do that for awhile, but, we saw a pretty good response for Cash for Clunkers, which means there are a lot of clunkers still out there."

So Mayland said not automatically, but over time, "The production and selling rate is going to steadily increase, of course, that's going to be good for Toledo, it's going to be good for Ohio economy because we're such a large auto-producing state."

Now as for jobs, Dr. Mayland said even when there's economic recovery, you're not going to see that immediately in more jobs. In fact, over the next few months, you may see even more pay cuts and a rise in unemployment rates, but don't get discouraged, he says the process of recovery is in place.