Boral Bricks plant manager Sean Kirk watches plant employees load bricks, four to eight at a time, onto monorail cars, sometimes loading 1,900 bricks a day.

“That’s got to be the hardest job I’ve ever done,” he recalls. “That’s all they do all day. They work hard, but they make a lot of money.”

The 36 workers at Boral’s Muskogee plant live and shop in Muskogee, Oktaha, Checotah and surrounding communities, Kirk said. The plant relies on local contractors and businesses for mining, contract hauling, keeping company vehicles in good condition. The plant supplies bricks to contractors from Muskogee to Dallas.

In so doing, the plant serves double duty in driving Muskogee’s economy now and in the future. It is part of Muskogee’s manufacturing sector, which employs more than 4,800 workers, just behind government and health care. Plus, the company supports the construction industry, a sector which could grow by 12 percent within 10 years, according to the Eastern Workforce Investment Board.

Leisha Haworth, executive director of Muskogee Development Corp., said she anticipates the top three sectors driving Muskogee’s economy in the future will be the same three driving it today: Government services, health care and manufacturing.

In a report about the area’s highest ranked industries, the Eastern Workforce Investment Board projects job growth in 13 areas by 2018. Top growing areas in a seven-county region include:

• Health Care and social assistance: 13,078 to 16,455 jobs, a 26 percent increase.

• Government: 27,503 to 30,509 jobs, a 11 percent increase.

• Retail trade: 13,457 to 15,055 jobs, a 12 percent increase.

The report projects a 4 percent decline in the number of manufacturing jobs by 2018, but that doesn’t mean manufacturing will cease being a driving force in the economy, said EWIB Director Nannette Robertson.

“A lot of it will be because of automation,” she said. “And, until the economy turns around, there is going to be a decline. But I don’t expect manufacturing to just go away.”

Haworth expects manufacturing to continue to be strong and to diversify.

She said alternative energy — including wind power — aeronautics, metal fabrication and transportation sensitive industries could pick up in areas where traditional manufacturing falters.

“Some of our industries are recession resistant,” Haworth said, citing toilet tissue as an example. Muskogee’s Georgia-Pacific plant makes Angel Soft toilet paper.

Manufacturing also isn’t limited to large employers such as Georgia-Pacific or Dal-Tile, Haworth said.