Now I'm seeing a lot of new units in my subdivision going up for people from IBM, EDS and Perot Systems. A lot of that growth, however, is tied to auto sales. Many service jobs are the result of automakers outsourcing and job cutbacks, experts say. Auto plants buy software to run welding robots. It's an elusive measurement problem.
Experts say it's a tough call.
A computer analysis suggests that another 1970s-like recession would hammer the state, but its impact on the overall economy would be 20 percent to 30 percent less now than back then. If the trend holds, the automakers' economic weight could fall to half its 1970s level by 2027. Think beyond the numbers and things look even better, said Sam Kahan, another economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. You can't take these things as fixed. The state and the country are much more advanced, better informed and more profit-driven than they were before.