CONOVER -- As record numbers of orders flow through Legacy Furniture Group's manufacturing plant, workers toil between towers of piled foam and incomplete end tables precariously stacked five pieces high.
With a 10 percent sales growth this year, Legacy has quickly forgotten the recession's low point in March, when weak order volumes forced the company to implement four-day workweeks.
In November alone, Legacy, which specializes in furniture for the medical industry, added a half-dozen employees to its staff of 35. These days, everyone is clocking overtime and the 40,000-square-foot factory is starting to feel cramped.
"We're starting to stack people instead of stacking furniture," co-founder Todd Norris says jokingly as he navigates rows of hand-sanded chair frames.
Legacy's recent success highlights a trend: Counties with the heaviest reliance on manufacturing income are posting some of the biggest employment gains of the nation's early economic recovery. This is a big change from just half a year ago, when some economists worried that widespread layoffs by U.S. manufacturers might be part of an irreversible trend in that sector.
Manufacturing recovers
The Associated Press Economic Stress Index, a monthly analysis of the economic state of more than 3,100 U.S. counties, found that manufacturing counties have outperformed the national average since March. The Stress Index calculates a score from 1 to 100 based on a county's unemployment, foreclosure and bankruptcy rates. The higher the number, the greater the county's level of economic stress.
The top 100 manufacturing counties with populations of more than 25,000 saw their score drop slightly over the spring and summer quarters, largely because of improvements in the unemployment rate. By comparison, the national average of similar counties saw county Stress scores increase about 7 percent over the same time.
Economists say these counties may always have high rates of idled workers as technology replaces workers on the assembly line and companies find cheaper labor elsewhere.
Signs of stability
But the early improvements in unemployment rates and manufacturing activity illustrate that there are, at the very least, signs of stability. U.S. manufacturers increased production by an average of 1.1 percent each month through July, August and September, before falling slightly, by 0.1 percent, in October, federal data show.
Economists cite a range of potential explanations for the early resurgence, including the "Cash for Clunkers" program to stimulate car buying, a weak U.S. dollar to aid exports, the use of temporary workers, the need to replace depleted inventories, and stimulus money that is taking root. All of that raises questions about whether the trend will last.
In Catawba County, historically a hub for furniture manufacturing, the unemployment rate dropped from a peak of 15.6 in March to 13.6 percent in September.
Will the jobs last?
The Carolina furniture makers who have been hiring since June may have cut too many jobs at the base of the recession, says Scott Volz, a consultant who helps the companies recruit managers. Some of those businesses have successfully refocused on specialties - such as high-end upholstery or quick turnarounds on custom furniture - instead of trying to compete directly with cheap Chinese imports.
Mike Walden, an economist at N.C. State University, said manufacturing tends to be one of the sectors that leads the way out of recession, as factories ramp up to meet pent-up demand. But he questioned whether the new jobs would stick around for long.
"Those factories have to go out and bring back some laid-off workers," Walden said. "In five years, however, those same workers may be back out the door."
