Abstract
Increased employment in high-technology industries will provide only a portion of the solutions for the current economic difficulties of the Great Lakes states - Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Bureau of Labor Statistics figures show that while total manufacturing employment fell 10 1/2% in the Great Lakes region from 1979 to 1982, high-technology employment fell less than 1%. Employment in core high-tech industries such as drugs, office equipment, and computing machines increased 9%. However, nonmanufacturing employment increased 21% from 1973 to 1979 and 3% from 1979 to 1982. Nonmanufacturing wage and salary employment increased by more than 14 million from 1973 to 1982 while high technology increased by less than a million. Given these trends and the absence of a high proportion of professionals and technicians in the Great Lakes' region, increased employment in high-tech industries may not occur. Other factors pointing to this include: 1. an educational level below the national average, 2. migration of college graduates to other parts of the US, 3. the absence of an existing large high-technology base, and 4. high production worker wages and a high degree of unionization.