Employment in the US auto industry has already halved since 2000, to less than 500,000. Now, with major restructuring underway, suppliers of plastics components are looking around for other markets.
One current success story, identified by the Wall Street Journal, is WJG Enterprise in Michigan. A 55-employee company, it was 100% oriented to auto parts until last year. But now, it is fast diversifying into the medical device market, where precision tooling is also a critical factor.
WJG bought new molds for $1.2m, and expects the medical business to represent half of its turnover by the end of the year. The blog likes the WJG website motto - "Where Failure is not an Option".