Christina Jones won’t let the ill economy infect her positive outlook as she prepares to open her cake and candy shop.
“I’m not even worried about it,” said Jones, an Alvaton resident, as she took a break from setting up Monday at her store on East Main Street. “Someone’s always having a birthday; someone’s always having a party.”
Jones, who plans to open Imagine Cakes and Candies the first week of May, is among business owners who have set up shop in Bowling Green despite a weak economy.
The city’s unemployment rate reached 10.3 percent in February, up from 10.1 percent in January, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The bureau reported a 5.1 percent unemployment rate for the city in February 2008.
Employment statistics are the most commonly used and updated measure of a city’s economy, Economics Chair Bill Davis said.
The rise in the city’s unemployment reflects the estimated 200 to 400 jobs lost because the DESA plant closed in December, said Jessica Thompson, communications director for Bowling Green’s Chamber of Commerce.
DESA, which made heating products and lawn equipment, filed for bankruptcy, she said.
Jim Hizer, president of the chamber, said Bowling Green’s reliance on the ailing auto industry was a blow to the city’s economy too.
The declining luxury sports car market has affected GM’s Bowling Green Assembly Plant, said Andrea Hales, communications manager for the plant.
The plant went from producing 18.5 cars per hour to 11 cars per hour, she said.
It didn’t open in 2009 until Feb. 23, Hales said.
The plant closed again a couple weeks ago and will reopen next week. It’s open about 50 percent of the time, she said.
It laid off 130 employees indefinitely, Hales said. Those layoffs are people who won’t go back to work at the plant unless it starts producing the same amount of cars it used to produce.
It’s projected that the number will go up to 240 by the end of the year, she said.
The rest of the plant’s employees have been on temporary layoff, she said. When the plant shuts down for one or more weeks, those people don’t work. When it opens back up, they come back.
Companies not tied to the auto industry continue to prosper, Hizer said.
Jones said she planned to open up a shop once she had 80 repeating customers to her small office on Lovers Lane-a goal she reached in a year.
People have been stopping by her shop to order cakes as Jones gets ready to open the shop, she said.
The chamber continues to have ribbon cuttings for new businesses, Thompson said.
Bowling Green resident Richard Hunt opened the doors of Mathnasium in February. It’s a math tutoring center where students can come in and get a “math workout,” Hunt said.
He said that, with only six students using the center, business hasn’t picked up as much as he would like. But he’s not discouraged by the economic climate.
“As a business owner, I decided external factors are not going to determine my success,” he said.
Bowling Green continues to be nationally recognized as a good place for businesses despite rising unemployment rates, Mayor Elaine Walker said.
“We are very aggressive in terms of our economic development,” she said.
Last month, Forbes Magazine ranked Bowling Green No. 19 of the 179 Best Small Places for Business and Careers.
“Because we had such good momentum in the slowdown, we are in much better shape than a lot of communities,” Hizer said.
But Walker said the economy would probably worsen in upcoming months because of the city’s ties to the auto industry.
Possible aid from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, known as the stimulus bill, and efforts to bring in more small businesses could help the city’s economy pick up again, she said.
The stimulus bill could create jobs in building and infrastructure, Walker said.
Hizer said parts of the stimulus package will create jobs in the next 10 to 12 months. Much of the stimulus bill won’t benefit the economy for another year or two.
But Hizer’s optimistic about the future.
“I think within a year the recovery will have began in earnest,” he said.
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