Yet Osceola County didn’t experience many temporary layoffs due to COVID-19 that extended beyond the state-ordered shutdowns, said Shelly Keene, executive director of Michigan Works! West Central. Her office works with job seekers in six counties north of Muskegon, from Lake Michigan east to M-66.
“It was pretty much business as usual there,” she said of the county, with a population of 23,341 as of 2018.
The permanent job losses aren’t mounting quickly, either. U.S. Marble, in nearby Mecosta County, laid off 150 people in January, with about half hired quickly by new employers. A Pizza Hut closed due to the pandemic. So did an event center, Keene said. But otherwise, the waves of layoffs felt in population centers around the state — at restaurants, tourism businesses, industrial sites ranging from small shops to AK Steel in Detroit — didn’t overwhelm Reed City and Evart or the villages that make up the rural county.
Except for Vitro.
A glut of automobile glass
The automotive glass supplier, based in Mexico, told the state on April 8 that it planned a temporary shutdown due to COVID-19, but then had to make it permanent. Originally planning to close by June 30, it extended the closing until July 30.
Vitro plant officials did not respond to Bridge Michigan requests for comment, but it reported in a news release on June 2 that plants in Evart and Evansville, Indiana, would close this year. The company blamed coronavirus in a letter to the state.
Alan Bengry, a pharmacist in downtown Evart and chair of the Downtown Development Authority, said Vitro had planned to close anyway, even as it was running three shifts. A glut of automotive glass, priced low and coming from China, is changing the market, Massy said.
Manufacturers overall are not experiencing a lot of permanent closures so far this year, said John Walsh, CEO of the Michigan Manufacturers Association. Some have excess capacity, and may be running fewer shifts until they see demand grow. Some are consolidating operations into fewer plants. Automotive, in particular, is expecting lower sales this year, and that will be felt across the supplier base.
Michigan has learned to get nervous when that happens.
“The story of Michigan in the last 100 years is that it rode the wave of manufacturing with phenomenal success,” Ballard said. “Since then, it’s been kind of bumpy.”
‘A destination in Michigan’
The Muskegon River borders Evart to the east and then along its southern boundary, creating a natural point of pride in the community where fishing, parks and city-run campsites focus on nature. The groundwater also supplies Nestle Ice Mountain bottled water from a controversial deal with the state to pump from a well just outside of town.
“Residents want Evart to be known as a destination in Michigan,” according to a 2017 report following community meetings as the city successfully sought to be a part of the state’s Rising Tide initiative. “The vision describes crowded sidewalks downtown with a variety of restaurants, retail, and entertainment options, including a vibrant riverwalk.”
It continued: “The residents want an Evart with little or no poverty and opportunity for all; a community where people pitch in to help the community and each other.”
People who choose to stay in Evart “aren’t coming here because they can make a lot of money,” said Mark Buss, a lifelong county resident who retired from the community mental health department and now works as a success coach with Michigan Works! West Central. “They like the quality of life.”
Yet poverty is a concern. The median annual household income in Evart is $25,396, and the poverty rate is 37 percent, according to U.S. Census data. The median house value is $66,900, and 64 percent of adults over age 25 did not attend college.
That’s one reason a focus on job creation preceded the pandemic, even in early 2019 when Osceola’s unemployment ranked 32 out of 83 counties.
The loss of manufacturing jobs stings in a poor town: Manufacturing wages in Osceola essentially have been flat since 2007, averaging $57,361 per year in 2019, but they pay more than many jobs in the community.
When describing what the layoffs in Evart will mean to the town, City Manager Sara Dvoracek calls the situation “shocking” and “devastating.”
But many in the city also are quick to point out other job opportunities emerging, like Lume, a marijuana grow facility that hopes to add 150 jobs within the next year, said Joyce, the mayor.
The largest employer is Ventra, a division of Flex-N-Gate, which employed 984 at its auto parts molding factory on U.S. 10 when it acquired the closed Dean Foods dairy facility on the city’s east side. Now across the two facilities it has over 1,000 workers and plans to hire 100, said Shelly Keene, executive director of Michigan Works! West Central.
Workers from Vitro who move to Ventra, a union facility, could see a bump in pay, Keene said: Production workers earned $10 to $14 per hour at the closed plant, compared to the starting wage at Ventra of $14.19.
But if they can’t get a job in town, the dynamics change.
“There are not a lot of opportunities for jobs in Evart itself,” said Lee Foster, a city resident, as he stopped at Hometown Hardware during a recent lunch break. “If you live here, you’ll have to drive a little bit for a new job.”
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Michigan town wonders what's next as factory closes and 125 jobs are lost - Bridge Michigan
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