After decades of industrial decline in St. Louis, it may finally be time to retire the term “Rust Belt.â€
It was an appropriate label for a metro area that lost 40% of its factory jobs between 1990 and 2010, but manufacturing employment here has been steady or growing for the past dozen years. Now, flush with a $25 million federal grant, the region is betting part of its future on a rebirth of manufacturing.
The grant, announced Sept. 2, will help build an advanced manufacturing innovation center in North St. Louis and fund job-training and entrepreneurship programs. Officials see the center as a catalyst for industrial innovation and growth, just as the 1998 opening of the Danforth Plant Science Center was a magnet for up-and-coming agricultural firms.
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St. Louis may never again be the mass-production powerhouse it was in the mid-20th century, when local factories churned out everything from electric motors to Corvettes to candy. The region still, however, supports 119,000 manufacturing jobs, and employers in the sector are eager for an image upgrade.
“This will raise awareness of manufacturing and give us more resources,†said Chris Seyer, owner of aerospace manufacturer Seyer Industries in St. Peters. He says recruiting is his No. 1 challenge: He’s seeing 75% fewer applicants for machinist positions than he got two years ago.
Seyer thinks too many high school graduates — and their parents — are stuck in the Rust Belt view of manufacturing. “There’s the perception that it’s dark and dirty … but if you come into our facility you’ll see how clean and automated everything is,†he said. “And it’s a career where you can start out debt-free and make $60,000 a year or more.â€
Greater St. Louis Inc., a business and civic organization, led the federal grant application. The group’s jobs plan, issued last year, identified advanced manufacturing as one of five industry clusters that could produce quality jobs and drive inclusive growth over the next decade.
“While there have been a lot of changes in that sector, it is a huge base of good-paying jobs,†said Jason Hall, chief executive of Greater St. Louis. “It is a strength on which we must build.â€
Global trends should help St. Louis meet its aspirations in manufacturing. After being battered by COVID-19, trade tensions and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, companies are rethinking their supply chains. Instead of offshoring production to cut costs, they are onshoring to ensure a reliable source of key components.
A $1 million portion of St. Louis’ grant, for example, supports a pharmaceutical ingredients manufacturing program in the Cortex district. The government is encouraging domestic production to alleviate shortages.
St. Louis’ central location should make it a desirable link in other industries’ supply chains too. “There’s a huge structural shift brewing in the economy,†Hall said. “We have to be positioned to take advantage of it.â€
Hall said he hopes ground can be broken next year for the advanced manufacturing innovation center, which will be located next to Ranken Technical College, which is near Kingshighway and Page boulevards. It will help manufacturers develop new technologies and production processes, while partners such as Ranken and St. Louis Community College and Southwestern Illinois College will train the workers they need.
And it’s a good bet that, unless the center’s designers include a sculpture that pays homage to St. Louis’ industrial past, nary a speck of rust will be found in the place.