Greater Cleveland getting older, smaller, poorer (Cincinnati, Newark: home, employment, buying)

[hertz]

After decades of decline, Greater Cleveland finally has been put on notice:



Shape up, or we're flying out.
That's the unambiguous message Jeff Smisek, who will be chief executive of the merged Continental and United Airlines, delivered in a speech this month to Cleveland business leaders.
"God does not come from on high and grant you hub status," Smisek bluntly told the gathering.
Hub status is earned by people buying seats and filling airplanes. And if business doesn't improve, Continental will drastically curtail service out of Cleveland Hopkins International Airport after two years.
If that happens, our inferiority complex -- and our problems -- will worse

Even the venerable Cleveland Clinic is not immune to the fallout.
While it continues to expand some of its Northeast Ohio operations, the recent layoff of 200 employees was a telltale sign that revenues aren't matching expectations.




Then there's American Greetings Corp. The Brooklyn-based, greeting card giant with 2,000 employees here is considering seven sites for its corporate headquarters -- including two in suburban Chicago.
Company officials don't want to leave Greater Cleveland. If they do, start looking for the light switch.



Greater Cleveland getting older, smaller, poorer: Brent Larkin | cleveland.com

[Buckeyes440]

That is a really depressing read but sadly nothing said is inaccurate.

[lisa12230]

"God does not come from on high and grant you hub status," Smisek bluntly told the gathering.


I beg the differ...God can do all things, and He can and Will bring this City back to life.....So who ever that Smisek person is need to read the Word of God....

[andrew61]

As a native Clevelander who has lived away from the area for the past 15 years, I'm a little confused.

This article appears to be saying that Cleveland's employment situation is grim... that the area is still losing jobs, and major employers are laying off, cutting operations, and even threatening to pull out of the region entirely.

Yet other posts I read on this forum say that Cleveland is rebounding nicely... that the unemployment rate is below the national average... that the city, finally, is in the process of making a successful transition to a diversifying, post-manufacturing, hi-tech economy.

So who's right? Why the disconnect?

[Buckeyes440]

Originally Posted by andrew61

As a native Clevelander who has lived away from the area for the past 15 years, I'm a little confused.

This article appears to be saying that Cleveland's employment situation is grim... that the area is still losing jobs, and major employers are laying off, cutting operations, and even threatening to pull out of the region entirely.

Yet other posts I read on this forum say that Cleveland is rebounding nicely... that the unemployment rate is below the national average... that the city, finally, is in the process of making a successful transition to a diversifying, post-manufacturing, hi-tech economy.

So who's right? Why the disconnect?

Both are right. Major employers ARE doing those things. But the unemployment rate IS still relatively low. Cleveland making the transition into a post-manufacturing economy could be argued but there is also the possibility that it's not doing it quick enough to salvage the city.

Basically...some strides are being made but there's still a lot of major red flags.

[Cleveland_Collector]

I would contend that the current employment situations in any city are relatively grim. The point that many people on this forum have made (myself included) is that the career prospects in the area for degreed professionals are relatively good.

This article is typical PD garbage and Brent Larkin is the quintessential PD drone. I mean, just read this:

"Ten years ago next June, this newspaper launched the "Quiet Crisis," an ongoing series that focused the community's attention on a desperate need to get serious about jobs or face economic extinction.

To an extent, the warning worked."

Written as if the PD has had anything to do with the positives the city has experienced or has written anything on its pages that anyone did not already know. One would assume that they would have deduced that Continental's presumed departure from Hopkins (no pun intended) would have much more to do with the fact that United (the other part of the merger and the new name of the combined company) already has a large, midwestern hub in Chicago. Throw in the facts that, over the past 10 years, 9/11 and the ensuing antics of the TSA have caused ridership to dwindle and that the newly merged mega-airline will have 8 hubs to support, I think it's fair to assume that any consolidation moves will have little to do with Cleveland's medium market job prospects and a lot to do with the aforementioned. It is simply amazing to me, albeit completely expected, that the PD would fail to mention any of it. Instead and in typical PD fashion, he claims: "But it won't be the airline's fault. It will be ours." As if the corporate monolith ever had any allegiance to the area to begin with. Quite simply, Cleveland has worked well for Continental as a hub because the other major cities with a capable airport in the midwest offered a ton of competition among airlines along competitive routes. Cleveland offered them a strategic advantage. And, that alone will determine whether Continental/United will maintain Cleveland as a hub.

I'd expand on the CCF layoffs and other issues this article weakly attempted to link, but this likely isn't even worth the time I've already spent on it.

[wrightflyer]

Personally, as someone who follows the airline industry, Smisek is just making excuses to consolidate services of the behemoth that is now United. With hubs in Chicago, Newark, and outside D.C. at Dulles, the Cleveland hub becomes obsolete in terms of location and network routing. Considering CLE is the smallest hub of the four and in the smallest market of the four, it makes the most business sense to cut CLE. The same could be said for Delta/Northwest in the Cincinnati market. Between the brand-new terminal at DTW, the huge and monopolized Atlanta market, and Memphis, Cincy was a gonner. It has gone from hub to focus (and still shrinking) in less than 5 years. When Comair was brought under Delta, it was the signal to cut ties to Cincy as there was nothing tying them to that airport.

Even with the corporate HQ's of Kroger, P&G, and Macy's, as well as many other companies, nothing was going to stop Delta from trimming its route network. The same could be said for Cleveland (HQ of Key, others, and home to other Fortune 500's) when it comes to air service. Of course, the recession has been a key factor in much of the airline industries cutbacks.

[Cleveland_Collector]

Yes. What Smisek is doing is hedging his bet that Cleveland will be eliminated as a hub. Since it's much easier to just blame the city than to admit that the merger made this move inevitable regardless of ridership, the path he'll take if/when the consolidation of hubs occurs is an obvious one: blame the city.

On the upside, I'm sure that another airline will realize the merits of increasing their service to an area which has 9 fortune 500 company HQs and a 5+ million person market.

[Na zdrowie]

Well said Wrightflyer and Cleveland_Collector. Smisek is knee deep in corporate speak and Larkin would probably be happier playing golf in Florida as he doesn't appear to have anything left to say that's worth reading. Airline mergers are an industry reality and Hopkins will adjust accordingly. No news here.

[xanthines]

I work at the Cleveland Clinic and they've done a good job at firing as few people as possible over the recession. Hiring/salary freezes and budget cuts were painful and stressful, but it was better than massive layoffs. The Clinic is also acquiring and merging with other hospitals so there's bound to be some redundancy in the workforce. I think comparing Continental to the Clinic is inappropriate.

As for relatively low unemployment, I think the exodus migration patterns have helped shaped that. People are looking elsewhere for jobs, fulfillment, whatever.