Two new solar panel manufacturing facilities are making a bright spot in an otherwise gloomy jobs report from the Illinois Manufacturers’ News today.

Illinois factory jobs have been declining for several years, spokeswoman Jennifer Ratcliff said.

“The transportation and heavy machinery areas have been especially hard hit,” she said.

Manufacturing employment fell by 2.9 percent in Illinois this year as some factories closed and others laid off workers to cut expenses, according to the jobs report.

In the midst of those cuts and closings, however, one new industry came on board with a flourish of activity in the state: solar.

Earth Friendly Products opened the largest solar-powered facility in the state in Addison, and Wangxiang America Corp. opened the state’s first solar panel manufacturing facility, Ratcliff said.

The report didn’t say how many jobs those facilities created, but they were among few companies in Illinois hiring employees rather than letting them go.

While Chrysler and two meatpacking plants have plans to expand and increase staffing, the two solar enterprises were the only brand new businesses to bring jobs to the state this year, Ratcliff said.

The solar manufacturing facilities are bright spots in the jobs report, Ratcliff said, because they indicate that the green economy is starting to look to Illinois.

She said a biofuel plant opened in the state last year as well.

“I think this definitely will make a difference,” she said of the new solar enterprises. “Anything helps, and the green technology industry is certainly growing.”

She said that while the numbers are grim for manufacturers in Illinois this year, they’re looking up. The fact that any new industry came into the state and that some existing industry is growing is promising, she said.

Illinois manufacturing industry jobs declined by 5.7 percent last year.

“It’s much better this year,” she said. “That’s a significant improvement.”

Some of the hardest-hit sectors include lumber and wood jobs with a 10.8 percent decline, furniture and fixture manufacturing with a 5.2 percent jobs decline; fabricated metals jobs fell by 4.4 percent, and Illinois’ largest industrial sector—industrial machinery manufacturing—fell by 3.5 percent, according to the report.

The new solar facilities offer promise that the state can redirect its qualified manufacturing workforce and produce something new in now-empty factories across the state.

Pictured: Solar manufacturing. Actually, this is First Solar's plant in Germany. In The U.S., people that look like frat boys don't normally work manufacturing jobs; they usually run for president.