Excellent news on the job front today in Michigan. Google Inc. (yes, as in I better google that), the search engine that is now in the dictionary as a verb, is looking to hire up to 1,000 people over the next five years to run their new Ann Arbor headquarters for their Google Adwords division.

A quick look at the Google Jobs site does not appear to show results for the upcoming Google Adwords positions. There are currently positions open for Google’s controversial Book Scanning operations in Ann Arbor and Advertising Sales positions in the Detroit area. Supposedly the new Ann Arbor jobs could be listed as early today. If you are interested you should check it out sometime today.

With average salaries anticipated at $47,000 this is a great day for Michigan and its beleaguered economy. I have to be honest, this news has me giddy and delighted for the state of Michigan this morning. Day after day all we see, hear, and read about are all of the job losses in the automobile industry.

Hearing that such a well known company from the technology sector is expanding in Michigan is like hearing we get an extra month of summer. Until now, it seemed that all we had to feel uplifted about in Michigan lately was the excellent play of the Detroit Tigers.

Can you imagine what might happen if things go well for Google in Michigan? We just might shift our economic image from the auto industry to the technology sector. Wouldn’t that be something?

Read Tom Walsh’s article in the Detroit Free Press.