The so-called “experts” who years ago predicted a hollowing out of the Midwest’s industrial base should pay a visit to Ohio, and they should begin their tour in Dayton.
Why Dayton, you ask? For starters, the Dayton-Kettering-Beavercreek metro area in Southwest Ohio was ranked No. 1 among all Tier 2 MSAs (population between 200,000 and
1 million) in the country in total corporate facility projects landed in 2024, per Site Selection. With 44 investment deals, the Dayton MSA beat out second-place New Orleans, which had 40, and third-place Allentown, Pennsylvania, which tallied 30.
For Dayton, this marked the metro area’s second No. 1 ranking since 2021 and coincided with a record-setting run of economic development performance for the Dayton Development Coalition. “We have 19 consecutive years in the top 10 of tier two metros; and this is the sixth time we’ve ranked No. 1,” says Jeff Hoagland, president and CEO of the DDC. “We don’t take this for granted. It shows the resilience of Dayton, Ohio.”
“We have 19 consecutive years in the top 10 of tier two metros; and this is the sixth time we have finished ranked No. 1.”
— Jeff Hoagland, President and CEO, Dayton Development Coalition
Resilience is the operative word. Rewind the calendar to 2008 to 2010 — the Great Recession — and you see that Dayton lost major employers GM, Delphi and NCR during that period. “We lost a lot,” says Hoagland. “But at the same time, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base was growing. Our economy has really diversified since then.”
Case in point is Westrafo, an Italian company that last year announced a $15 million investment to establish its first North American factory in Trotwood, Ohio, near Dayton, and employ 230 Ohioans to produce power transformers and energy solutions. Westrafo plans to move in July into a new 230,000-sq.-ft. facility near the intersection of Wolf Creek Pike and Olive Road in Trotwood, a town of 23,000 people in Montgomery County.
How significant is this deal for Ohio? Consider this: “We considered the whole U.S.,” says Westrafo CEO Alberto Cracco. “We started in Texas and landed in Ohio. The process was long. It took about a year. We visited a lot of states. A lot of the offers were attractive.”
At the end of that site selection process, Cracco says, a handful of factors sealed the deal in favor of the Dayton region. “Ohio is the heart of the United States in location and industry,” he says. “That was a very important part of the site selection criteria that we used. Also, the type of skilled people we found in Ohio in the industrial sector was a big factor. We need highly skilled engineers and production personnel.”
Cracco says Dayton delivers other assets. “The cost-to-quality ratio that we are expected to have in Ohio compared to neighboring states is a big advantage for us,” he notes. “Other criteria included airport distance; worker salaries; state and local taxes; labor unions; local schools; grants and incentives; real estate costs, including the cost of land and the cost of building; utilities; and culture.”
Westrafo’s new plant is under construction in Trotwood, Ohio, near Dayton.
Photos courtesy of Westrafo
The greenfield project is in an established industrial park and is moving much faster than Cracco expected, he says, noting he was not expecting such fervent support from local officials. “The government in Italy puts obstacles in your path. Here in Ohio, everyone in the government worked together with us on this project. They all provided the data we needed to do the deal. They understood that we are investing a lot of money.”
“The cost-to-quality ratio that we are expected to have in Ohio compared to neighboring states is a big advantage for us.”
— Alberto Cracco, CEO, Westrafo
Headquartered in Vicenza near Venice in northeastern Italy, Westrafo maintains production facilities and operations in Italy and Ghana. “Dayton is very similar in its industrial base to where we are located in Italy,” says Cracco. “We are in a very localized community with around the same size of city. I feel at home when I am in Dayton.”
Ohio: A State of Producers
Making manufacturers feel at home is job one for JobsOhio, the state agency charged with guiding economic development. JobsOhio CEO J.P. Nauseef says, “There is a lot of shifting going on with reshoring of manufacturing. By necessity, we are a persistent, roll-up-the-sleeves culture. I came to the state as a member of a military family. I served in California. We came back here because we appreciate the value proposition Ohio offers.”
Nauseef took over as head of JobsOhio in March 2019. The state has been on a roll since. In 2024, Ohio finished No. 3 in the nation in the Site Selection Governor’s Cup competition for the third year in a row. In 2020 and 2021, Ohio placed second.
BrewDog brewery in Fairfield, Ohio, is an FDI project out of Scotland.
Photo courtesy of One Columbus
One of the projects that helped Ohio qualify for its elite ranking was the recent SNC expansion in Dayton. SNC won a $13 billion U.S. Air Force contract to modernize and deliver a replacement for the current fleet of E-4B Nightwatch aircraft, a highly specialized airplane that serves as a “survivable airborne command center” (SAOC) for the president of the United States, the secretary of defense and the chairs of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The purpose of the airplane is to ensure continuity of command during a national emergency. In colloquial parlance, this aircraft is known as the “Doomsday Plane.”
Whether building power transformers or hardened aircraft, Ohio’s factory base is robust and built for the long term. According to a report from the Ohio Manufacturers Association, manufacturing is responsible for 17.5% of state GDP and generates an annual payroll of $48 billion, making factory work the No. 1 job in the state.
As of November 2022, Ohio ranked third in the U.S. in total manufacturing employees, at around 689,900 — behind only California and Texas. As of the third quarter of 2023, Ohio’s manufacturing GDP was $133.2 billion, placing Ohio fourth in the country.
Younger Workers Moving to Ohio
Recent migration data point to a strong likelihood that manufacturing recovery in Ohio will last a good while longer. It starts with workforce, and on that count, Ohio is outpacing the nation in its ability to attract younger, highly skilled workers.
Hamilton Lombard, a researcher at the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia, analyzed the migration patterns of 25-to-44-year-olds across the country from 2010 to 2023 and discovered some interesting findings in the Midwest.
“In some ways, Ohio has followed a similar trajectory as Michigan, shifting from losing the fourth largest number of 25-to-44-year-olds in the first three years of the 2010s to gaining the 10th largest number of 25-to-44-year-olds in the first three years of the 2020s — a larger gain than Utah, Nevada or Michigan,” Lombard wrote in his analysis.
Moreover, these population gains are not confined to big cities. “Ohio has seen migration turn positive for many of its smaller cities and towns, including Ashtabula, Canton and Steubenville, after decades of out-migration,” Lombard notes. “Manufacturing employment has risen slightly in recent years after decades of losses in Ohio, while employment in transportation and warehousing has risen faster than in the rest of the U.S.”
Lombard adds that, since 2010, growth in the 25-to-44 age group “has become much more widespread in Ohio. During the first three years of the 2020s, the combined growth in Cleveland, Akron and Youngstown’s 25-to-44 population was close to the increase in Columbus’s 25-to-44 population. Columbus continues to be a significant source of growth, but it is growing more slowly with most of its growth concentrated in its outer counties.”
SafeLite Auto Glass continues to grow its workforce and invest in its headquarters in Columbus.
Photo courtesy of One Columbus
Other key findings:
- In 2013, 22 of Ohio’s 88 counties were attracting more residents from other parts of the country than they were losing. In 2023, that number had risen to 56, up from 51 in 2022 and 49 in 2021.
- During the first three years of the 2010s, Ohio’s 25-to-44 population fell in 81 of its 88 counties. Since 2020, it has fallen in just 24 counties.
- Total domestic migration for Ohio remains negative, due to retirees continuing to leave, but the state’s loss in population to other states is currently the lowest number in decades and significantly smaller than before the pandemic.
- The 25-to-44 population has grown in 26 of Ohio’s 36 manufacturing-dependent counties since 2020, up from only three counties showing growth in that age group during the first three years of the 2010s.
For companies looking to grow and needing experienced millennials and Gen Z workers to fill the new jobs, the Buckeye State is calling.
