With the annual auto show opening in Detroit this month, what does it say that more University of Michigan engineering grads are now taking jobs with tech giants Amazon, Google and Microsoft than with General Motors, Ford and Chrysler?

That's a question that Michigan economic leaders need to ponder. For if the state's economy remains strong and growing, Michigan clearly lags as a beacon for science and tech graduates. And Michigan's traditional automotive employers are no longer creating jobs here like they once did.

The figures on U-M grads and where they find jobs could be just one small indicator of slower average growth for Michigan in the years to come.

In the latest report from the U-M's Engineering Career Resource Center, some 310 U-M grads in the 2016-17 class took jobs with Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Apple and Facebook. That outpaced the 205 U-M engineering grads who took jobs with GM, Ford and Chrysler.

The story is much the same among 2018 newly minted MBA grads from U-M's Ross School of Business. The West Coast and even Midwest cities like Chicago lure many more of U-M's MBA grads than metro Detroit, which sees less than 5 percent accept jobs in southeast Michigan.

And here's another data point to ponder. Cruise, the autonomous vehicle development company based in San Francisco that GM bought in 2016, now has about 200 job openings listed on its website, seeking everything from data analysts to a directors of product design. All those openings are in San Francisco. The company lists no job openings in Michigan, despite being owned by GM.

How to interpret these numbers? Do they indicate that the "brain drain" of talented young Michiganders remains a threat to Michigan's future? Or something less of a problem?

On the upside, Michigan's economy remains stronger today than at any time since the early 2000s. Auto sales posted another robust year in 2018, the state's jobless rate remains under 4 percent and U-M economists predict at least another couple years of good growth in the state.

And let's not forget that many of those new U-M engineering and MBA grads were not from Michigan in the first place. Many came from outside the state to attend classes in Ann Arbor, and so it's no surprise that they may leave Michigan once they finish school.

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Viewed against the backdrop of a strong local economy, the dispersal of U-M grads to elsewhere may be no more than the normal churn in a healthy job market where workers feel free to travel for the best job offer.

But there's also a more worrisome side to this.

Michigan has watched its economic clout erode over many years. Ranked by total economic output, or gross domestic product, Michigan's economy has slid from ninth place among the 50 states in 2005 to 14th place today.

Georgia, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Virginia and Washington all passed Michigan on the list of biggest state economies in recent years, according to the latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

So the dispersal of U-M engineering and business graduates, while a natural result of a robust jobs market, may also reflect Michigan's gradually slipping position. Put bluntly, Michigan is growing, but so is everybody else, and many places are growing faster than we are.

The erosion of Michigan's traditional auto-related employment base may be the most significant economic story of the past 15 years here. In the late 1990s, Michigan factories still employed nearly 900,000 workers; today that manufacturing workforce stands at 624,000. It recovered a lot since the Great Recession of a decade ago, but clearly the long-term realignment of the auto industry saw many of those jobs disappear forever.

Michigan has been trying mightily to replace that lost manufacturing might with many other things — with jobs in education and health care, with the most sophisticated new manufacturing jobs, with jobs in the design and engineering side of the mobility industry, and with new support for entrepreneurs and small business.

And to a large extent Michigan has succeeded in all those endeavors. It's just that it's not enough to maintain our once Top-10 position among state economies.

So that's why state economic leaders need to think about all those U-M graduates leaving the state. Maybe it's nothing to worry about. But maybe it is.

Contact John Gallagher: 313-222-5173 or gallagher@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @jgallagherfreep.