Another blow to Greenville

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leaving many highly paid, skilled

workers with no job, few alternatives.

The $21.50 per-hour average wage General Electric pays its Greenville employees works out to $44,750 annually, a handsome sum 75 percent better than market average.

About 500 Upstate families will soon lose that income. Roughly 100 more families will lose even higher salaries from the management and salaried positions cut. By July GE will have laid off 1,600 workers, roughly half the number that staffed its Garlington Road plant at its peak.

Based on the average wage, that's at least $71.6 million in income the Upstate will have lost by next summer. It is, undeniably, a crippling economic blow to Greenville, sure to be felt in all quarters, from retail sales to local tax collections to home sales.

But the real tragedy is on the personal level, in those displaced workers. Victims of a vicious economic cycle and an unforeseen drop in the energy market that seriously softened demand for gas turbines, those workers will not likely find jobs that offer comparable pay. Few attractive options are available, not with the economy still slumbering and manufacturing in the midst of a four-year slide.

Unavoidable economic cycles not withstanding, South Carolina must work to stem the steep decline of high-wage manufacturing jobs that is the foundation of our local economy. This state's middle class is built upon manufacturing, and South Carolina has had to bear 18,000 production jobs lost over the past year. And this is unlike past economic downturns where employers would routinely call back laid off workers when conditions improved. These jobs are not likely to come back, as even GE has greater incentive to move those jobs offshore where they are cheaper and closer to the company's emerging group of customers.

This state has made much of its new strategy to make the needed investments to develop a knowledge-based economy, where South Carolina attracts jobs and business based upon our research and expertise. As Gov. Mark Sanford has repeatedly emphasized, South Carolina must be more entrepreneurial, so this state can grow its own jobs and attract the higher-wage jobs.

But this state cannot afford to abandon branch manufacturing, and any suggestion to do so is terribly short-sighted. This state must continue to recruit industry and create favorable investment conditions. South Carolina needs greater manufacturing diversity, too, so downturns in one sector can be offset by vitality and growth in another sector.

South Carolina has been cultivating manufacturing for the better part of five decades. The rise of our technical college system and the success in attracting the likes of BMW, Michelin and Fuji Film stem from that planning and investment. Our future work force will, undoubtedly, have fewer traditional manufacturing jobs.

But for now and the immediate future, South Carolina needs to continue recruiting industry to give thousands of semi-skilled and skilled workers a chance to work.