May 15, 2007 — General Motors' decision follows a trend that has rapidly decimated the high-wage manufacturing jobs that once sustained North Country towns like Newton Falls and Malone. Alan Beideck is an analyst with the New York state Department of Labor, based in Saranac Lake. According to Beideck, manufacturing jobs will be hard to replace. Factory jobs in St. Lawrence County pay an average salary of around $51,000 a year. That compares with just $31,000 for most of the county's workers.