Mag Mile Store Opening Creates More Than 200 Jobs
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A slick new apparel shop opened Thursday on Michigan Avenue, filling a big empty storefront and providing new jobs in a tough retail environment.
But are they the kind of jobs the economy needs most? CBS 2's Derrick Blakley reports.
In an economy that's starving for jobs, you can't really dismiss new employment of any kind. The opening of Topshop in the former site of Borders book store provides hundreds of new jobs, but not the kind America has been losing fast.
"Hopefully we'll do some business, we'll create some sales tax," Topshop CEO Sir Phillip Greene said.
Employees like Ashley Kollin are happy to land one of the 260 retail jobs.
"I think in retail it's really tough. A lot of the stores, with the bad economy, they're cutting jobs and there's not so many hours out there," she said.
Some insist these aren't the kinds of jobs the economy needs most.
"It's not about a service economy, banks and insurance companies, Wendy's and Starbucks that are going to pull the American economy out of these troubling economic times," says Eric Treiber, CEO of Chicago White Metal Casting.
The 75-year-old company in Bensenville employs 250 people. Treiber says help for small manufacturing is the key to economic growth.
"We are the economic engine that drives the country, and by pushing down on us with additional regulatory reforms, rules and regulations that are in many cases senseless, they're shooting the golden goose," he said.
Treiber was in Washington, along with a dozen other small businessmen, to watch President Obama's jobs speech at the invitation of U.S. House Speaker John Boehner.
