Factory payrolls are expected to shrink 0.4 percent next year. That'll continue, U-M said. Service payrolls grew about 2.5 percent in 1998. U-M sees 2 percent annual gains over the next two years. U-M economists said, however, that their predictions this year are somewhat less certain than in previous years because of growing global economic uncertainty.
Some economists see bigger threats to the state's economic health.
The most immediate are weak foreign economies. That means goodbye pickup trucks. Also near the top of a lot of worry lists is the state's ongoing worker shortage. Comerica Bank's chief economist David Littmann said the labor shortage signals Michigan's failure to attract new workers, compared to other big states like Texas, California and Florida. Michigan's population growth has run around 0.4 percent in recent years.