“I have some good news this morning,” said Dr. Joey Smith, UWG associate professor of economics. “We’re showing job growth in all five counties in the region, primarily led by the private sector. We’ve seen a lot of increase in employment in goods production, services and healthcare.”
Smith said home sales are also up, but in existing homes, not new ones.
The West Georgia region includes the counties of Carroll, Coweta, Douglas, Haralson and Paulding.
Speaking specifically on Douglas County, he said several new jobs have been added over the past year, with employment showing a 1.1 percent growth, and unemployment falling from 10.6 percent this time last year to a present rate of 9.2 percent. He said new jobs include 148 in healthcare, 139 in finance and 103 in construction.
“One significant development in healthcare is the announced plans of WellStar to renovate and expand its Douglasville hospital,” Smith said. “WellStar’s plans include an $18.5 million renovation and expansion of its intensive care unit and emergency department, to be completed by September, 2014.”
He said growth in construction jobs is due mainly to construction of new government facilities.
“Significant public sector construction projects include the nearly completed $115 million county jail and law enforcement center and the $16 million Douglasville Conference Center, due to be completed by next January,” Smith said. “The 300-car parking deck, attached to the conference center, opened for use in October.”
He noted that Douglas County has increased its incentives for businesses considering locating in the county.
“Portions of Bankhead Highway (U.S. 78) have been labeled an ‘opportunity zone,’ which effectively doubles the tax breaks for firms that locate in the area and create two or more new jobs in the county,” Smith said.
He said retail trade accounts for about one of five jobs in the county, but said retail job growth has remained flat since new retail openings have only replaced employment lost by other retail closings.
Smith said the index of leading economic indicators is growing in West Georgia, but at a slow rate, about 0.6 percent.
“Even though it’s still growing, we’re seeing a slowdown in the growth rate,” Smith said. “It’s not negative growth, but smaller growth going forward.”
Regional population is not growing as fast as it once was, he said.
“We used to hear that Paulding County was one of the fastest growing counties in the nation,” Smith said. “Now, it’s not even the fastest in the region. Coweta County has that claim.”
He said there’s some recovery in the housing market, even though housing starts are way down. He noted that housing starts numbered in the 50s this year in Carroll County, while a few years back, they were in the two thousands.
“They are not likely to come back anytime in the near future,” he said. “However, we’re selling more existing homes now because of good buys. Many are being bought by investors, but that’s how you clear the market.”
Smith said foreclosures across the region are down this year and have been trending downward. He said the reason is that Georgia is not a judicial foreclosure state, where foreclosures can take several years.
“Georgia processes them quickly and puts them on the market quickly,” he said, which he said helps clear them out quicker.
“Our area is still relatively high in foreclosures and the state is high for the U.S.,” he said. “We’re not doing great, but we’re doing better. The top 10 foreclosure counties are now on the eastern side of Atlanta.”
Smith said the region has suffered a high rate of bank failures and these have been tied to the high foreclosures. Virtually all of them were community banks, he added, but there’s been no bank failures this year in the region.
He said income and sales tax revenues are up by 4.3 percent, which means the counties will get a larger share to fund schools, fire protection and police.
John B. Jung, Jr., of BB&T Capital Markets, spoke on the U.S. economy and financial outlook.
Jung said that we’re living in a different economic time and that nobody 10 years ago would have predicted where we are now.
He quoted famous baseball manager, Casey Stengle, as saying, “Never make predictions, especially about the future.”
“How can any of us tell you where we’ll be five years from now?” he asked.
Jung said he sees improving signs in consumer confidence and spending.
“Since 2009, confidence has started to get better,” he said. “It’s not straight up, but it’s an improved trend line. Consumers are starting to spend.”
Jung said America still has a lot to be proud of in its economy: lowest cost of energy in the world, great transportation system, highly educated population and a very hard working group of people.”
He noted this recession has been different from those in the past.
“The leading indicators haven’t recovered as they typically do after a recession.” he said. “The reason is, in the past, consumers spent their way out of a recession because they had debt capacity. Today, the consumer has already borrowed money and is relying on debt for spending. Consumers need to repair their balance sheets.”
Jung said the country is looking at recovery, but a slower recovery.
“We’re looking at limited growth, about 2 percent this year and maybe 1 percent next year,” he said. “We’ll have lower consumer spending and unemployment still up.”
However, Jung said he is confident that jobs will come back from Mexico, India and other overseas locations.
“This is a positive thing in the long term,” he said. “We have the most productive workers and we’ll bring jobs back to the U.S.”
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