…As Wichita Struggles To Recover…

Among the economies particularly hard hit, Wichita, Kan., central to the aviation industry, lost billions of dollars and about 14,000 jobs. The loss of each of those highly paid manufacturing jobs has a ripple effect, causing the loss of two other jobs as the flow of money slows down, the Topeka Capital-Journal reported on Monday. In Wichita, it’s all added up to a lot of unemployment. “The impact is overwhelming,” John Moore, a former Cessna VP who is now the lieutenant governor of Kansas, told the Capital-Journal. “Aviation has always been cyclical, but I don’t think in history that you can find a time where it went from such a remarkable high to such a dramatic low.” Moore also noted that Boeing alone represents as much as 7 to 10 percent of the entire economy of the state. “So then you take a look at what has happened at Cessna and Bombardier and Raytheon, and you have that compounded,” Wichita has absorbed a huge economic jolt.