Barbour says state must help replace lost furniture making jobs
Gov. Haley Barbour said Tuesday that the Appalachian Regional Commission and Mississippi Development Authority should be praised for their job creation efforts, but warned that further work must be done to replace the shrinking furniture manufacturing industry in North Mississippi.
“There is a lot of good news of economic development in the Golden Triangle,” Barbour said during his visit to the Golden Triangle Regional Airport. “However, we are not blind to the fact that the furniture manufacturing industry won’t employ as many people in the future.”
Barbour was in Columbus Tuesday in preparation for today’s Appalachian Regional Commission policy session at Mississippi University for Women. The governor also attended a reception for ARC officials at antebellum White Arches in Columbus Tuesday evening.
“Many of the economic job development projects in this region have come from ARC,” said Barbour, who stressed how critical the commission has been in finding financing for Mississippi projects and providing high-speed broadband access to rural areas.
ARC is a federal-state partnership that works with the people of the Appalachian region to create opportunities for economic development and improved quality of life.
The 13-state ARC region reaches into northeast Mississippi’s 22 counties, including Lowndes, Clay, Oktibbeha, Noxubee and Monroe in the local area.
Barbour stressed the importance of furniture manufacturing to Northeast Mississippi, but said the state needs to replenish jobs, not solely focus on keeping jobs from leaving.
During Gov. Musgrove’s administration, Barbour said the state lost 22 percent of its manufacturing jobs.
“What is most important is not to just get people working,” he said. “But to have more people working for larger incomes. The method of success is to produce more with less.”
Barbour said he is proud of Mississippi’s job creation during his administration, particularly since Hurricane Katrina.
“There has been real job creation in the whole state of Mississippi despite Katrina,” he said.
“Seventy thousand jobs were lost, yet we still increased personal income in the state.”
Mississippi reached pre-Katrina employment levels just five months after the hurricane, he said, and under his administration 20,000 net jobs have been created.
Barbour sited the 1,380-acre SeverCorr site, just east of GTRA, as an example of the state’s aggressive job creation efforts.
The $850-million, 1.2-million-square-foot plant now under construction will employ nearly 450 people and create many more jobs through spinoff companies.
“Economic expansion is not only strong in the Northeast, but spread pretty well over the state,” Barbour said. “We’re working all the time in replacing jobs, and ARC is absolutely part of that.”
