· June 21, 2012

At least 12,500 Ohio auto jobs created since the recovery

Research Overview 

Today we released a white paper showing that at least 12,500 Ohio jobs were created by President Obama’s auto rescue plan and that hundreds more now seem likely. In recent nationally broadcast television interviews on CNN and NBC’s Meet the Press, Gov. Kasich has downplayed the importance of auto jobs to the Ohio economy, claiming that the auto rescue plan was responsible for only “1,800 direct jobs” and that only 700 of the 73.300 jobs Ohio has added since January 2011 were automotive jobs. According to Innovation Ohio, Kasich low-balled the auto job number by disingenuously looking ONLY at 2011 (actually, just the first 9 months of that year). In reality, however, the collapse in Ohio auto jobs began with the onset of the Great Recession in late 2008 when roughly 110,000 Ohioans were directly employed in the auto industry and its supply chain.  By June, 2009 only 70,000 of those jobs remained.

But once the Obama administration’s loan and loan guarantee program kicked in for General Motors and Chrysler (announced in March without the support of either Governor Romney or Governor Kasich) the slide stopped and began to reverse.  Between June, 2009 and September, 2011 12,462 Ohioans went back to work in the auto industry. And this, of course, does not count the hundreds or perhaps thousands of Ohioans who would have lost their auto jobs had President Obama not initiated the rescue.  Nor does it count “multiplier effect” jobs. Read the report here. Read the press release.