Laid Off In Indiana

Filed under: News

The Bureau of Labor Statistics today notes a rise in unemployed workers in 361 out of 369 metropolitan areas. The report compares joblessness in October 2008 to the situation in October 2007.

Elkhart-Goshen, Ind., recorded the second-highest spike in unemployment -- a rise of 6.3 percent. What's going on there?

Elkhart County makes about half of all RVs -- those cruise ships on wheels that fill parking lots across America every summer. During the vacation season, RV execs said higher prices at the pump forced would-be cruisers to reconsider their grand tours. More recently, blame for the industry's hard times spread to include the credit crisis and a lackluster economy.

Local station WSBT has a good roundup of the layoffs. A local blogger steered me to that clip, plus this news from WNDU: "More RV layoffs in Elkhart County."

The layoffs in Elkhart, with a population of about 200,000, have been coming by the hundreds. Keystone RV, the county's third-largest employer, laid off 290 people in August. That's 10 percent of its workforce. "It's so easy to talk about the numbers and then you run into one of the workers at a grocery store and realize that they had three kids, have a mortgage, and maybe a sick child," Keystone President and CEO Ron Fenech told WNDU. "We don't come by these choices easily. We've delayed it as long as we could."

The October unemployment in Elkhart County stood at 10.7, compared to the national rate of 6.1. Maybe, as Assembly Magazine writes, Elkhart should take a lesson from its neighbor to the south, Warsaw. That town's booming now -- the self-styled "orthopedic capital of the world" makes artificial joints like hips and knees.

Laura Conaway

11:56 AM ET | 12- 2-2008 | permalink

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