Economists Predict Job Growth For Wichita In 2012

Wed, January 18, 2012

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KMUW / Briana O’Higgins

Updated employment numbers out yesterday from the Center for Economic Development and Business Research at Wichita State University indicate economic growth despite the recent announcement from the Boeing Company that they will close their Wichita Plant. KMUW’s Briana O’Higgins reports.

The regularly scheduled release contains state and Wichita area employment data through November 2011 and takes into account the January 4 announcement from the airplane manufacturer. After showing almost no growth in 2011 the state and local economy should improve in 2012, says Jeremy Hill director of the Center for Economic Development and Business Research, but not as much as originally expected.

“Our revision for 2012 was brought down just slightly from 1.1 percent to 1 percent at the state level,” says Hill. “We were expecting the Wichita area to help with the state economy going into 2012 and now with some recent news, not just with Boeing, but also Hawker Beechcraft had some layoffs in the fourth quarter. You know, we’ve revised down our manufacturing side, production side for Wichita. It went from 1.3 percent from 2011-12 to .6 percent.”

Overall, Hills says the state should see around 13,000 additional jobs with around 2,000 of those jobs in the Wichita area. Boeing’s departure will likely mean less of those jobs will come from manufacturing, with major growth taking place in the service industry.