MUNCIE, Ind. (AP) — From the floor of his company's sleek new manufacturing facility west of Muncie, Todd Murray can see the recovery.
As Murray shows visitors around the 170,000-square-foot Mursix Corp. facility still being completed along Interstate 69, his enthusiasm is evident.
"Less than two years ago we had 88 employees," Murray said. "By the second week of February we plan to have 190."
Asked how high those job numbers could go, Murray replied, "By 2014, I'd like to see us have over 300 working."
After a pause, he added, "And I expect more."
Mursix — the consolidated name for companies that began life 65 years ago as Twoson Tool — is growing not only its physical presence, with a new facility, but its share of the manufacturing market.
Mursix already makes eight million seat-belt fasteners a year for Toyota — 80 percent of those parts used in Toyota's domestically-made vehicles. The company also designs and builds parts for cutting-edge electric vehicle batteries.
When Murray talks, his optimism is contagious.
But can Muncie, East Central Indiana and the nation bounce back from the national recession — and decades of auto-industry decay — so easily?
With Muncie's unemployment rate reaching 12 percent in summer 2010 before settling in around 10 percent — twice the level of five years ago — when can we expect recovery?
Most importantly, when can we expect new jobs?
Slow progress The loss of jobs in Muncie and East Central Indiana has been gradual but breathtaking. A Ball State University study released early last year noted that 12,000 jobs had disappeared over the previous decade.
During that time, manufacturing jobs at BorgWarner Automotive and Chevrolet ended, and along with them, the community lost jobs at stores, restaurants, car dealers and other businesses that had long catered to the auto parts industry, including hundreds of jobs at small tool-and-die shops that supplied parts and machinery work for the larger factories.
"We're seeing bigger plants (announcing work), but it worries me that the smaller plants are not doing anything," economist Michael Hicks of Ball State University said in reference to the recovery from the national recession, which officially ended more than a year ago.
That uncertainty translates into very slow progress in chipping away at the state's unemployment rate. Hicks recently predicted that the rate, which has hovered around 10 percent, could drop to 8.7 percent in 2011.
"To get to the optimum rate of 6 percent could take no less than four years," Hicks said. "I hope I'm wrong."
Jim Diffley, chief regional economist for IHS Global Insight, which does economic forecasting for the state of Indiana, didn't disagree. Diffley said the unemployment rate could remain at 10 percent this year and drop to 9.5 percent in 2012.
"We will get back to 6 percent, but it's a matter of years out rather than quarters out," Diffley said. "Unfortunately we're not alone in projecting that five years out, we'll still have unemployment in the 7-to-8 percent range."
Room for new jobs? In the meantime, every job will count. That's why the 450 jobs promised at Brevini Wind's facility, where workers will build gearboxes for energy-generating wind turbines, and the 650 jobs projected for Progress Rail Service's railroad locomotive factory, are so highly valued.
State, Muncie and Delaware County officials provide incentives to companies like those, and Mursix for promises to create jobs. In the case of Mursix, that included the county's proposal to fund the $2-million purchase of Mursix's landlocked Twoson Tool facility on Bethel Avenue in the city of Muncie. The agreement helped make possible the Mursix purchase of the former TK Constructors building at Park One/332 at the interstate. TK was hired to add a 130,000-square-foot manufacturing addition — designed by US Architects — to the existing 40,000-square-foot TK building. The old Twoson facility is being marketed to potential tenants.
For Mursix, the new facility represents a $10-million investment.
As he watched Murray's demonstration of the variety of products designed and built by Mursix — destined for alternative energy projects for auto industry players as diverse as Delphi and Enerdel — Delaware County Commissioner Todd Donati cited the company's "willingness to expand and take on projects."
"That's what we're gambling on," Donati said. "We believe that, in the future, we'll be talking about expansion and more jobs."
Murray agreed.
"We're looking at another expansion yet this year, to start in 2011 or 2012," he said. "This is definitely not big enough for all we need. If everything goes as we project, we'll be out of room by the end of the year."
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