After enjoying years of tremendous growth, Detroit, the center of the USA’s auto industry, has been negatively affected by changes in the global supply, which led us to analyze how much the impact has been on the local economy.
From all the cities analyzed, Detroit is the only one that experienced a decrease in population, with a 14% decline between 2007 and 2016. Interestingly, employment has recovered completely in the same time period, which led us to conclude that the unemployment rate in manufacturing should be lower than in 2007. During the same 10 years, the total payroll increased by 10%, which shows that employees are earning slightly better than before (the increase is less than 1% compounded).
During the same time period, the tech-related employment did not recover completely, as happened with the rest of the cities. But the total payroll increased more than in manufacturing, meaning that tech-related wages have improved way more than manufacturing in Detroit.