A deeper look into our auto industry: the Detroit Region continues to maintain its edge as one of the top manufacturers of cars and car parts in the United States.

Here's the big picture: The motor vehicle industry is the largest manufacturing sector in the United States, and it has a huge economic impact on every segment of on our nation's economy--from construction to retail. It goes without saying, of course, that no region in the United States feels that impact more strongly than the Detroit Region.

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As the undisputed center of the North American automotive industry, we feel this industry can make or break our economy. With so much dire news about Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp. recently--and, in fact, the entire industry--just how is that playing out on our entire economy?

First, lets take a look at production. Over the last 10 years, motor vehicle production in the Detroit Region has actually increased by nearly 5 percent. This is double the increase in auto production experienced by the United States as a whole. Clearly, our perception of the demise of auto production in this region is overstated, if not totally false.

Now let's take a look at employment. In 2005, the transportation equipment manufacturing companies (includes automobiles, trucks, motorcycles, aerospace and marine) directly employed nearly 158,000 people in the Detroit Region. With total regional employment around 2 million, companies engaged in the manufacturing of transportation equipment supply close to 8 percent of the region's private sector jobs. And these employees pumped over $11 billion into our economy last year.

Manufacturing jobs, and more specifically automotive industry jobs, are known for their high "multiplier effect." When an auto manufacturer purchases supplies and services from other companies this creates jobs. When that same manufacturer pays its employees, those employees turn around and spend that money in a variety of ways, also creating jobs. This multiplier effect trickles down to all sectors of the economy. Estimates of multipliers are complicated as a portion of this spending, particularly for goods and services used during the manufacturing process, occurs outside the region. Estimates of the multiplier effects in the auto industry range from 2 to 10--for every manufacturing job another 1 to 9 additional jobs are created or sustained.

These days we seem to worry most about all the volume of products we're importing or the number of jobs we're exporting. And while these trends are definitely a concern, Michigan does export a significant amount of automobiles and automotive supplies. In 2005, Michigan companies exported over $37 billion worth of transportation equipment. This is down 2 percent since 2000 but still accounted for 50 percent of the state's export activity. In contrast, only 38 percent of Ohio's exports, the next largest auto-producing state after Michigan, consist of transportation equipment.