Michigan's labor market: full plants, longer hours, fewer workers.
C3 Workforce publishes labor market research for the markets our clients and candidates ask about most. Here is Michigan, on the July 2026 data: the numbers, the plants that are changing, what employers pay, and what changes on January 1, 2027.
Sources: Michigan Center for Data and Analytics (MCDA), Michigan Employment Situation, July 2026, released August 20, 2026; BLS Economy at a Glance, Michigan, July 2026 preliminary; BLS series SMU26000000500000003, July 2026 versus July 2025.
What is happening in Michigan right now.
Seven things the data says, with sources. The household and payroll surveys disagree this year, so each number names its survey.
Start with the plants. Production workers in motor vehicles and parts averaged 45.6 hours a week nationally in August 2026, up from 42.6 a year earlier, with overtime at 6.5 hours a week in July, while headcount stayed flat at 962,800. In Michigan the split is sharper: assembly employment rose to 46,500 in June 2026 from 46,000, and motor vehicle parts employment fell to 109,500 from 113,600, about 4,100 supplier jobs. Plants are stretching crews instead of adding heads, and the losses sit with Tier 1 and Tier 2 suppliers, not the automakers.
Sources: BLS CES series CES3133600107 and CES3133600109, July and August 2026 preliminary; BLS series SMU26000003133610001 and SMU26000003133630001, June 2026 versus June 2025, not seasonally adjusted.
Product plans are shifting under those hours. Ford ended the current F 150 Lightning in late 2025, took a $19.5 billion charge, and moved Rouge Electric Vehicle Center employees to a third crew building gas and hybrid F 150s at Dearborn Truck Plant. Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne (about 6,100 hourly workers) keeps building Bronco and Ranger, with a Lincoln SUV and a Bronco styled pickup reported for 2029. GM will lay off 350 to 361 at Lansing Grand River on January 14, 2027 to retool from EV output to the next Cadillac CT5, with recall expected. Stellantis put a range extended EV and internal combustion large SUV program for Michigan in its $13 billion U.S. plan.
Sources: Ford, December 15 to 16, 2025; Detroit News, August 19, 2026; Carscoops and Michigan WARN entry, August 2026; Stellantis, October 15, 2025.
Batteries consolidated rather than left. LG Energy Solution began production on August 18, 2026 at the Delta Township plant near Lansing that GM exited in 2024: more than $2 billion invested, 2.8 million square feet, 900 employees now and 1,700 at capacity, building cells for the 2027 Toyota Highlander EV and for grid storage. Gotion's $2.4 billion Big Rapids project is over; the state is recovering $50 million.
Sources: LG Energy Solution release and WILX, August 18, 2026; Bridge Michigan, June 2, 2026.
The biggest construction site in Washtenaw County is a data center. Related Digital is building the 1.4 gigawatt Stargate campus in Saline Township for Oracle and OpenAI. The Public Service Commission conditionally approved two DTE Electric supply contracts in December 2025; the Attorney General appealed in April 2026, an objection to the township tax abatement was filed August 13, 2026, and repeal bills for the state's data center tax exemption were debated September 2. No job count has been disclosed, so we do not publish one.
Sources: Planet Detroit, August 12, 2026; WEMU, August 13, 2026; WILX, September 2, 2026; Detroit News, September 13, 2026.
Employment rules change on January 1, 2027. The minimum wage rises from $13.73 to $15.00 an hour, then indexes to inflation. The maximum weekly unemployment benefit rises from $530 to $614, on top of the 26 weeks of duration restored in 2025, and since July 19, 2026 claimants must complete three work search activities a week. The Earned Sick Time Act, in force since February 21, 2025, accrues one paid hour per 30 worked, and LEO states that coverage includes temporary employees supplied through a staffing agency.
Sources: Michigan LEO Wage and Hour Division (minimum wage schedule, ESTA FAQ); LEO release, December 18, 2025; USA Today Network, August 17, 2026.
Underneath it all, the workforce is shrinking. Michigan's labor force was 4,878,000 in July 2026, down 143,000 (2.8 percent) over the year, and July was the seventh straight monthly decline in household employment; participation is 59.1 percent. MCDA cautions that population control revisions inflate the drop, and payroll jobs rose for a fifth straight month (up 8,000 over the year), so the two surveys disagree. Census estimates show why: 99,680 births against 104,678 deaths in the year to July 2025, with nearly all of the 27,922 person growth coming from net international migration of 30,706.
Sources: MCDA, July 2026 (household and payroll surveys); U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2025 estimates, January 2026.
Layoffs are real but concentrated. The Upjohn Institute counted 1,677 workers on Michigan WARN notices in the second quarter of 2026, 83 percent from Spirit Airlines, Fifth Third and Rec Boat Holdings. This fall adds Trinity Health's 557 mostly IT positions in Livonia and Niagara Bottling's 86 job Plymouth closure. Employment services, the closest public proxy for temporary help, stood at 81,800 in July 2026 against 78,800 a year earlier.
Sources: W.E. Upjohn Institute, Q2 2026; Michigan LEO WARN list, September 13, 2026; BLS series SMU26000006056130001, July 2026 preliminary.
Metro Detroit and the corridors.
Where the plants are and how each metro is running, July 2026.
Livonia sits where I 96 meets I 275 in the western Wayne County supplier belt. Ford's Livonia Transmission Plant employs about 3,008 people, 2,720 of them hourly, building 6R, 10R, 8F35 and 8F40 transmissions; Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne and Ford's Dearborn complex are 15 minutes east. Macomb County is the defense corridor: Sterling Heights has Stellantis's Ram plant and, from September 2026, Capture Group's 125 defense jobs starting at $25.00 an hour. In Oakland County, AirBoss Defense Group adds 78 jobs in Auburn Hills at $20.40 to more than $32 an hour and Horse Powertrain 32 in Southfield.
Sources: Ford Motor Company, Livonia Transmission Plant profile; MEDC releases, September 2 and September 9, 2026.
Beyond Detroit: Lansing, where LG Energy Solution ramps while GM Lansing Grand River retools and Dakkota Integrated Systems closes 67 jobs on December 31; Saline Township and Stargate; and Saginaw County, where Hemlock Semiconductor's CHIPS backed polysilicon plant (180 permanent jobs, production 2028) and Corning's $1.5 billion solar wafer plant (400 new production jobs, 2026 capacity sold out) are the new anchors. Grand Rapids has the fastest shrinking labor force, down 6.9 percent over the year; Flint has the highest jobless rate among the large metros and the fastest payroll growth.
Sources: Michigan LEO WARN list; NIST CHIPS award, January 2025; GCN, August 15, 2026; MCDA regional release, August 27, 2026.
| Metro area | Unemployment, July 2026 | July 2025 | Payroll jobs, July 2026 | Change over year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Detroit Warren Dearborn | 6.0% | 5.6% | 2,040,700 | +3,200 |
| Grand Rapids Wyoming Kentwood | 4.3% | 5.0% | 600,200 | +2,800 |
| Lansing East Lansing | 4.8% | 5.9% | 235,000 | down 400 |
| Ann Arbor | 4.2% | 4.9% | 230,800 | +1,500 |
| Flint | 5.8% | 7.2% | 145,500 | +2,100 |
| Kalamazoo Portage | 4.6% | 5.4% | 129,500 | +200 |
| Saginaw | 5.9% | 6.9% | 85,500 | +900 |
| Michigan, not seasonally adjusted | 5.4% | 5.7% | 4,499,100 | +18,700 |
Sources: MCDA regional release, August 27, 2026 (rates, not seasonally adjusted); BLS Metropolitan Area Employment and Unemployment, July 2026, Table 3, released September 2, 2026 (payroll jobs). The Detroit metro rate is 5.3 percent seasonally adjusted.
What employers in Michigan pay, BLS medians.
Market benchmarks, not C3 pay rates. Hourly, statewide, the nine occupations our clients hire most. The wide 75th percentile for assemblers reflects UAW scale work.
| Occupation (SOC) | 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th | U.S. median |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Team assemblers (51 2092) | $17.41 | $18.20 | $21.49 | $34.70 | $36.98 | $21.47 |
| Laborers and material movers (53 7062) | $14.53 | $17.18 | $18.68 | $22.30 | $25.04 | $19.35 |
| Forklift operators (53 7051) | $17.88 | $18.91 | $21.74 | $26.02 | $34.21 | $22.32 |
| Inspectors and testers (51 9061) | $16.46 | $17.48 | $21.39 | $25.62 | $30.77 | $23.35 |
| CNC tool operators (51 9161) | $17.40 | $19.09 | $22.72 | $27.88 | $30.19 | $24.37 |
| Welders and cutters (51 4121) | $18.80 | $22.36 | $24.03 | $28.46 | $33.75 | $25.84 |
| Machinists (51 4041) | $18.45 | $22.24 | $25.17 | $29.95 | $36.22 | $28.24 |
| Industrial machinery mechanics (49 9041) | $22.64 | $27.55 | $30.89 | $37.17 | $43.88 | $31.02 |
| Electricians (47 2111) | $20.66 | $24.21 | $36.67 | $44.38 | $49.58 | $30.38 |
Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, Michigan statewide, via O*NET OnLine, accessed September 2026. Market benchmarks, not C3 pay rates.
Employer compliance in Michigan.
The items that change your cost per hour in 2026 and 2027. A starting point, not legal advice.
| Item | Michigan rule | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum wage | $13.73 per hour from January 1, 2026; $15.00 from January 1, 2027, then indexed annually. | LEO Wage and Hour; U.S. DOL, July 1, 2026 |
| UI taxable wage base | $9,000 per employee for qualified employers in 2026 ($9,500 statutory default). | Michigan UIA |
| UI tax rates | New employers 2.7 percent in years one and two. Experienced employers 0.06 to 10.3 percent (sum of the three component caps). | Michigan UIA rate and component pages |
| UI benefits | Maximum $530 a week in 2026, $614 in 2027, indexed from 2028; 26 weeks; three work search activities a week since July 19, 2026. | LEO, December 18, 2025; Public Act 173 of 2024 |
| Earned Sick Time Act | One paid hour per 30 worked. Use of up to 72 hours a year at 10 or more employees, 40 below that. Covers temporary employees provided through a staffing agency. | LEO ESTA page and FAQ |
| Workers compensation | Private market. CAOM state, not NCCI. Premium index $0.90 per $100 of payroll, 36th lowest among states. | CAOM; Oregon DCBS ranking, 2024 |
| Right to work | Repealed, effective February 13, 2024. Union security agreements are lawful again in private contracts. | LEO, Michigan Employment Relations Commission |
| E Verify | Not required of private employers by state law. Federal Form I 9 applies. | U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services |
| Prevailing wage | Restored for state funded construction by Public Act 10 of 2023. Staffing firms supplying that labor are covered. | LEO Wage and Hour, prevailing wage |
Compliance facts current as of September 13, 2026. Verify with the agency before relying on them for a specific decision.
Under Michigan Administrative Code R 421.190, a temporary help firm is the liable employer for unemployment tax purposes and pays unemployment taxes on its employees; the client entity is not the employer for that purpose. When a C3 employee's assignment ends and a claim follows, it charges C3's account and experience rate, not yours. At $530 a week for 26 weeks, one full claim is $13,780 of potential charges (our arithmetic from LEO figures) against a $9,000 taxable wage base. What does not move: OSHA treats the host employer and the staffing agency as joint employers for worker safety, and joint employer doctrines under Title VII, the ADA, the FLSA and the NLRA can still reach a client. We say so because a careful buyer will ask.
Sources: Mich. Admin. Code R 421.190; Michigan LEO and UIA; OSHA Temporary Worker Initiative. The $13,780 figure is a derived calculation, not a published statistic.
Michigan headlines, summer 2026.
Eight dated items from our research feed, newest first.
Niagara Bottling to close its Plymouth plant, 86 jobs, by October 31.
Production and warehouse workers in western Wayne County enter the market this fall. PlasticsToday; LEO WARN list.
Trinity Health to lay off 557 in Livonia as it outsources IT, October 25 to November 29.
The largest 2026 Michigan WARN notice, mostly technology support roles. Michigan Advance.
Capture Group brings 125 defense industry jobs to Sterling Heights.
$25.00 an hour starting wages in Macomb County's defense corridor. MEDC.
Detroit metro unemployment at 6.0 percent, the only Michigan region higher than a year ago.
Auto related temporary layoffs and seasonal education cuts drove a 50,000 job seasonal dip. MCDA.
Michigan jobless rate eases to 4.9 percent in July; labor force down 29,000 in a month.
Seventh straight monthly decline in household employment as payroll jobs rose for a fifth month. MCDA.
LG Energy Solution starts production at Delta Township; 900 employees, 1,700 planned.
The largest active battery hiring program in Michigan. LG Energy Solution.
GM to lay off 350 at Lansing Grand River on January 14, 2027 to retool for the gas Cadillac CT5.
Temporary layoff with recall rights; confirms the EV to internal combustion pivot in Lansing. Carscoops; WARN entry.
Michigan unemployment claimants now need three work search activities a week.
Effective July 19, 2026. Expect more claimant contacts; document every applicant interaction. USA Today Network.
Questions we get about Michigan.
What is Michigan's unemployment rate right now?
4.9 percent in July 2026, seasonally adjusted, down from 5.0 percent in June and unchanged from July 2025 (Michigan Center for Data and Analytics, August 20, 2026). The U.S. rate was 4.1 percent. August data arrive September 18, 2026.
Is Michigan manufacturing hiring in 2026?
Slowly. Manufacturing employment was 585,500 in July 2026, down 0.2 percent over the year but up 4,000 in the month. Assembly plants are running longer hours on flat headcount, parts employment is down about 4,100, and new hiring is concentrated at LG Energy Solution near Lansing, defense suppliers in Macomb and Oakland counties, and the Hemlock and Corning plants in Saginaw County.
When does Michigan's minimum wage reach $15.00?
January 1, 2027. The rate is $13.73 per hour for 2026 and rises to $15.00 on January 1, 2027, then adjusts annually for inflation under Senate Bill 8 (2025). The tipped rate becomes $6.30 and the rate for 16 and 17 year olds $12.75.
Does Michigan's Earned Sick Time Act apply to temporary workers?
Yes. LEO's ESTA FAQ states that coverage includes temporary employees provided through a temporary service or staffing agency. Accrual is one paid hour per 30 hours worked, with use of up to 72 hours a year at employers with 10 or more employees. In a staffing arrangement the staffing firm administers the accrual for its own employees.
Who pays the unemployment claim when a temporary assignment ends in Michigan?
The staffing firm. Michigan Administrative Code R 421.190 makes a temporary help firm the liable employer for unemployment tax purposes; the client entity is not the employer for that purpose. The claim charges the staffing firm's account and experience rate. Safety obligations under the OSH Act remain joint.
Where does C3 Workforce staff in Michigan?
C3 Workforce is headquartered at 32233 Schoolcraft Rd, Suite 100, Livonia, MI 48150. Michigan work centers on Metro Detroit (Wayne, Oakland, Macomb and Washtenaw counties) with placements in Lansing, Grand Rapids, Flint and the Saginaw area. C3 is active in multiple markets across the country and does business in all 50 states. Call (734) 552-5731.
Headquartered in Livonia. Working every corridor on this page.
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Livonia, MI 48150
(734) 552-5731
info@c3workforce.com
On Schoolcraft Road along I 96, in the western Wayne County supplier belt. Recruiters who know the plants named on this page, and a national team behind them for every other state.
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