ELKHART COUNTY — Recent layoffs and cutbacks have fueled new fears of a major slowdown across the local RV industry. Now, experts say new data supports that theory.

That new report comes from the Recreational Vehicle Industry Association, and it shows wholesale shipments down 9.5 percent in 2007, marking the worst sales performance industry wide since 2003.

And the forecast for 2008 isn't much brighter. That's left some of the 65,000 manufacturing workers in Elkhart County wondering when they might get a pink slip too.

Scott Barrett is one of them.

"Uncertainty is definitely at a high," he said, after leaving his first shift job at Travel Supreme on State Road 19 in Wakarusa. "And we are concerned about the future."

You won't hear Barrett complain because even after the production line he's worked on for the last seven years shut down last week, right now, he still has a job.

"We're one of the few that will be called back, and we feel bad for the ones that won't be," he said.

Barrett isn't sure how long those calls back will last, particularly after what he's seen lately across the industry.

Last week, 200 workers were laid off at Monaco Coach in Wakarusa. Newmar RV in Nappanee cut back to a 3-day work week last week. Company executives tell WSBT News layoffs may soon be the only option left there too.

It's the same story at Travel Supreme, where production did resume Monday, but company executives conceded it may not last for long. Even industry giants like Coachmen Industries in Elkhart call 2007 "one of the most challenging years for our company."

Experts say it's no coincidence that the bad news is hitting from all sides.

"They're all looking at the same data, and they're all arriving at the same conclusions, and the data's just not very pretty," said Indiana University South Bend Economics Professor Dr. Lane David. "In the RV industry and the automotive industry, there's definitely a recession already, and we're seeing the effects of that."

They aren't hard to glimpse.

More than 100 workers from Monaco and other smaller local RV makers packed into unemployment offices in Elkhart and South Bend Monday alone. It's the largest one day volume from the RV industry that WorkOne business manager Howard Blackwood can ever remember.

"Normally we do not see that," said Blackwood. "If they close down one plant, they tend to reabsorb it in the other plants."

Blackwood believes that means the worst may still lie ahead. Even so, he's staying optimistic.

"They've always weathered the storm," he said. "They'll weather this one."

Barrett is staying optimistic, too. The only question left for him is how long the storm will last.

"We'll just plow through. We don't have any other choice and we'll just see what tomorrow brings," he said.

Dr. Davis says, unfortunately, "tomorrow" may bring more bad news. The RV, automotive and housing industries are typically leading indicators of more widespread problems with the economy, and because of that, he predicts losses of around 5 percent across the RV industry in 2008.

But all three of those industries are very cyclical, and David says that's a good sign too.

"The industry is not in its death throes or anything like that," he said. "This is a somewhat normal thing. Unfortunately, it's very painful for the people who are involved in it. The two things you really have to look for are stabilization in gas prices, and stabilizing home prices. And once both of those happen, I think the economy will turn around fairly quickly after that."

Dr. David, and other industry experts expect the slowdown to continue for the next few months, but if fuel prices do drop, and interest rates stabilize, he expects the RV industry to begin rebounding by the summer of 2008.