What’s happening with the economy? Ask six people, and you’ll get at least four answers, depending upon their sector and their perspective. Election year rhetoric serves to further confound an already diverse set of predictions.
The University of Michigan takes on the task of annually forecasting Michigan’s economy through a group called RSQE. In November, their published report for 2004-05 set a pretty optimistic tone. My series of site visits with Cathi Cole, the UP’s Michigan Economic Development Corp account manager, has also revealed the manufacturing sector to be optimistic. The small sample that we visited this first quarter have all expressed optimism in the form of more orders on the books right now than they had for the first half or more of 2003.
The Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Growth (the labor market section was formerly part of Michigan Dep’t of Career Development) highlighted several elements from the U of M report in their latest newsletter. These highlights are paraphrased here:
•The Michigan economy will make a solid recovery during 2004-05, and after three years of job losses, will sustain an employment rebound at paces similar to the second half of the 1990’s.
•Employment growth will start slowly at just over 1% in first quarter of 04, but will accelerate through the end of 2005. They predict average job growth will be 2.3% during the first half of 2005, but will probably end 2005 at 1.8%
•By the end of 2004, nearly all the jobs lost during the past two years will be replaced, and the end of 2005, the job count will be more than 80,000 above the 4th quarter of 2001 level.
•The state’s unemployment rate during the first quarter of 2004 will stay at 7.4%, but should drop to 6.5% by the end of 2004 and should continue its decline to 5.7% by the end of 2005.
Only January’s numbers are currently available for 2004, so it will be a couple of months before we can see how close U of M will be. January 2004 state unemployment was at 6.6%.
The NPR reported today that Manpower (the nation-wide temporary employment service) found that employment projections were high for 2004 and they also expected employment figures to reach their 2001 levels. They noted that the Mid-West and the North-East were the least optimistic regarding the size of the bounce back of jobs.
Taking this local, we see by the Delta County employment chart below that while 2003 was down, it still followed the “up” employment pattern we’ve been seeing for the past ten years. Contrary to popular perception, our 2003 followed the same path as our best years (2000-2002), and we are already just barely below our 2001 highs. Come Grow with Us in Delta County!
Linda A Hirvonen, Executive Director
Delta County Economic Development Alliance
230 Ludington Street
Escanaba MI 49829
(906) 786-2192 or fax (906) 786-8830
