Keeping Manufacturing Vital

In this troubled economy, candidates have to answer questions about jobs, and how to protect American jobs from being sent overseas. The New Hampshire Labor Bureau says the state has lost more than 26,000 manufacturing jobs from 2001 to 2007. And state officials expect the manufacturing industry will lose around 2,700 more jobs by 2014. The decline is being felt around the country, and local businesses are struggling to compete with foreign markets.

We wanted to hear what those job losses mean to the workers, and how they rebuild their lives after their workplaces are forced to shut down. After 60 years in business, Moosehead Manufacturing Company closed up shop last year because of overseas competition. The company had two plants, in the rural Maine towns of Monson and Dover-Foxcroft. Former workers, the skeleton crew, and even the company president were seeking answers and a new direction. They wondered what would come next as the place that was the center of their lives closed its doors. Sarah Archambault spoke to them, and produced a story for the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies in Portland, Maine.

But there’s some good news for Moosehead and its workers. The company is now under new leadership and has re-opened, consolidating the manufacturing process in the Monson plant. They’ve rehired about a third of the employees who had been laid off.

(Photo courtesy of Moosehead Furniture)