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Global Protectionism Could Impact Wichita Exports In 2018

An economic expert says changes to the international trading system could slow down manufacturing exports in the Wichita area.

Jeremy Hill  is the director of the Center for Economic Development and Business Research at Wichita State. He released the2018 employment forecastearlier this month.

Hill says despite a growing global economy government trade policies and restrictions could impact exports.

"Given that we are not only talking about increase protectionism here in the U.S., but other countries have done that," Hill says. "That is diminishing our future competitiveness across the world."

Hill says manufacturing employment has declined in recent years, but the value of exports from the Wichita area has increased. He says this is due in part to the changing use of labor in the manufacturing industry.

Hill says manufacturing employment has declined each year in Kansas since 2015.

The forecast says employment in the Wichita area is expected to grow 0.4 percent and statewide 0.1 percent next year.

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Follow Deborah Shaar on Twitter @deborahshaar.

 
To contact KMUW News or to send in a news tip, reach us at news@kmuw.org.

 

Deborah joined the news team at KMUW in September 2014 as a news reporter. She spent more than a dozen years working in news at both public and commercial radio and television stations in Ohio, West Virginia and Detroit, Michigan. Before relocating to Wichita in 2013, Deborah taught news and broadcasting classes at Tarrant County College in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas area.