Brain Gain: Which industries are growing in NE Ohio

CLEVELAND -- We are a rust belt city with the reputation of a dying economy. And, when you look at unemployment numbers and empty office buildings, its hard to imagine Cleveland is thriving. But, there's an exciting undercurrent in Northeast Ohio, one that promises a better and brighter future.

"There's just this whole idea that somehow everyone is leaving and its entirely wrong," says Thomas Waltermire with Team NEO.

The stigma of "Brain Drain" is all perspective. Waltermire has crunched the numbers and says the statistics show, Cleveland is gaining and gaining where it matters.

In numbers just released by Team NEO, they found that 80 thousand jobs were realized this year in the region, 23 thousand since July alone. And the Gross Regional Product is projected to grow 3.6 percent in 2010.

So why the stigma Cleveland's best and brightest have to go to bigger cities for better opportunities?

"We get so fixated on a few big brand names and somehow think nobody's here... But there are a lot of smaller companies that have developed and evolved and grown, and so we actually have more headquarters type functions now than we've ever had before."

Waltermire says both Akron and Cleveland are slowly attracting a different type of business - a far cry from steel and automotive.

"But what's in common is its all higher technology, its more globally competitive, and more export oriented and those are the trends going on in the economy here."

New "cleantech" energy technology is being created right here, biotech is developing and manufacturing isn't dead, in fact booming.

"The United States has never had more industrial manufacturing output than it has today."

(Article courtesy of WKYC.com)