Auto workers to retrain

The question is whether jobs can be found for retrained workers in the state with America's highest unemployment rate.

"As the unemployment rate has risen, that has given us fewer opportunities to place people in jobs," said Douglas Stites, head of Capital Area Michigan Works in Lansing, which provides job training for workers. "At some point, we're going to be training people to wait for demand to come back."

"We've either crossed that line," he said, "or we're crossing it now."

Michigan's official unemployment rate hit 15.2 percent in June, easily higher than any other U.S. state. The next highest was Rhode Island with 12.4 percent. The national rate in June was 9.5 percent.

Michigan got a head start on the recession. Whereas it began for the United States as a whole in December 2007, the decline of the auto industry and other factors cost Michigan more than 335,000 manufacturing jobs between December 2000 and December 2008.

The auto sector's decline accelerated in 2008 as the market for cars plummeted, forcing two of America's once-vaunted Big Three automakers -- General Motors and Chrysler Group -- into bankruptcy this year.