Dive Brief:
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Some say the $4.2 billion BP Whiting Refinery modernization project spared northwest Indiana—and especially its construction industry—from the worst of the recession. But now that the state’s largest-ever construction project is finished and the refinery is up and running, the area is struggling with another kind of downturn.
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The Times Media Co. in northwest Indiana has reported that BP employed up to 14,000 skilled construction trades as it built the refinery of high-sulfur crude oil, and now many of those workers are unemployed and the region’s wages have tumbled by $1.25 an hour.
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"We've got roughly 40,000 working men and women, and some of them are sitting," Randy Palmateer, business manager for Northwest Indiana Building and Construction Trades Council, told the news organization. "There's some unemployment. Some of that's by virtue of the fact that it slows up in the winter. But there isn't that big project.”
Dive Insight:
The region is making a slow rebound from the exit of the “big project,” however. Six industrial developments are under construction and retail construction is starting to pick up.
An irony: Although local wages are lower than they were when construction jobs were more plentiful, they’re still higher than in nearby Tennessee and Kentucky. As a result, local businesses are hiring out-of-state laborers who can earn more there than they can at home. “It’s killing the local economy,” Palmateer said, as those workers don’t pay local taxes or patronize neighborhood businesses.