When it comes to economic development in the greater Jamestown area, it feels as if we’re taking two steps forward and one step back.

It’s an improvement from 10 years ago, when the story was one step forward and two steps back.

It’s an interesting concept to consider as we ponder the recent closure of Bush Industries and what the company’s end means for the greater Jamestown area economy. Last week, there was an emotional reaction to the news of the closure, which brought to an end a local company with a nearly 70-year history and eliminated 230 jobs from the local economy. As we said, it was a gut punch.

Rationally, Bush’s closure shows the importance of embracing new types of manufacturing in an attempt to provide the types of jobs that we’ve lost over the years as familiar names in manufacturing have closed. That transition has been under way for years. As we’ve lost the old names that provided our industrial base during Jamestown’s heyday, new names have popped up.

We’ve weathered closures in the past, and as a result our area’s economy is different than it once was. An economy that was once dominated by the furniture industry is now driven in part by the automotive industry – TitanX, Cummins and New Flyer, among others, are all involved in one way, shape or form by the auto industry. New Flyer took over an old grocery store on Fluvanna Avenue to make bus components. Electrovaya is building out its Gigafactory in the former West Ellicott home of Acu-Rite. A former industrial building is in the midst of a transformation into Ramsey Agriculture. Those projects all come with assistance from local or state governments in the form of various tax breaks and cheap power agreements.

But, historically, the trends show that we are losing ground as we lose population. In April 1990, there were 63,300 people employed in Chautauqua County. Through March 2026, that number had dropped to 50,200. We know we will never recover the type of employment we saw more than 35 years ago. We’ve lost too much population for that. But it’s hard to build – as Chautauqua County actually had been doing on the jobs front with a gain of 600 jobs from January 2025 to January 2026 – when we take a step backward like we did last week.

Rationally, however, the number say we were in a better position as a county providing jobs heading into 2026 than we were heading into 2025. Ulysses S. Grant once famously said, “In every battle, he who continues the attack wins.” If we are to continue the limited momentum we had going into the year on the jobs battleground, the area needs to continue to attack economic development – or else we will give up our limited gains.