Rajeev Dhawan, director at Georgia State’s Economic Forecasting Center, released the latest “Forecast of the Nation” and the “Forecast of Georgia and Atlanta” today. The Forecasting Center’s quarterly update comes amid a stall in the Chinese economy and a bit of a rollercoaster period on Wall Street. Dhawan remained positive though. Chinese devaluation of the yuan is “positive news for the economy overall” and will help to improve domestic profit margins on imported goods.
The Center’s report predicts positive growth for Georgia jobs over the next few year, gaining nearly 83,000 jobs in calendar year 2015, 87,500 next year and over 94,000 in 2017. This is expected to reverse the “sharp deceleration” in Georgia’s employment growth over the past year. The second half of 2014 saw 3.9 percent growth drop to just 1.7 percent in the first half of 2015. According to Dhawan, “As global economic health stabilizes, consumers demonstrate a greater propensity to spend and corporate spending resumes, Peach State job growth will accelerate to 2.6 percent for the 2015 calendar year.”
Nominal personal income is expected to grow in Georgia by 4.6 percent in 2015, 5.1 percent in 2016 and 5.8 percent in 2017. Metro Atlanta will account for much of the growth, adding 62,000 jobs this year, 63,300 in 2016 and over 65,000 in 2017. Small businesses, demand for carpet and auto parts from Dalton and Gainesville, and the Port of Savannah will also help to contribute to the growth. Vehicle sales nationally are picking up, seeing an increase of 4.5 percent this year over last year’s already strong numbers.
The Port of Savannah saw a 17 percent increase in 20-foot container units this past year and had a 7.8 percent increase in total tonnage. This helped to make a record year for the Georgia Ports Authority as it recently announced that it moved a record number of shipping containers in the most recent fiscal year.
The intermodal port in Murray County is expected to begin construction later this year which means good news for manufacturers in North Georgia who should be able to more easily move their goods either to the port or to the rest of the Southeast. Increases in national housing and auto demand are also beneficial for these manufacturers.
The move of several headquarters to metro Atlanta, including Porsche and Mercedes-Benz, will continue professional and business service growth and hiring. Weaker growth globally for the corporate sector is being made up for by domestic consumption. Housing demand has also been strengthened by the moves of these headquarters and offices into metro Atlanta. In the second quarter of 2015, housing permits grew by a whopping 25.3 percent over the same period in 2014, helped by a 36.6 percent growth in multi-family permits.
Dhawan pointed to the increasing impact of the milliennial generation. “To no one’s surprise, millennials are fueling demand for multi-family housing. They’re also spurring area companies to relocate to downtown and Midtown in order to draw on their high-tech skills.”
Read more from the GSU Economic Forecasting Center here: http://news.gsu.edu/2015/08/27/consumer-demand-investment-pickup-will-trump-market-turbulence-economic-forecast-says/
