Let’s compare our mortgage malaises, shall we?
Posted on November 20, 2009 at 9:19 amFrom the BERC’s latest Housing Brief:
Oh, by the way: The national numbers have gotten quite a bit worse in a rather short time.
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Filling Tennessee’s green job openings
Posted on November 19, 2009 at 8:34 am
The Tennessee Department of Labor & Workforce Development, the State Workforce Investment Board and MTSU’s Business and Economic Research Center have received a $765,340 grant from the U.S. Department of Labor to improve the matching of the state’s green jobs with workers.
The survey will focus on public and private interest in renewable transportation, sustainable agriculture, and Federal funding focused on the State’s burgeoning green economy. This survey will expand on prior green studies (Growing Green: the Potential for Green Job Growth in Tennessee 2008) by providing current estimates for the number of green jobs and green job vacancies within the 13 labor and workforce investment areas of Tennessee. A focus of the grant is to help workers affected by significant automotive-related restructurings connect to career pathways in green industries. Additionally, the grant will develop an enhanced online self-service labor exchange module to match green job seekers with respective employers.
All the DOL grants are here.
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MTSU economist: Nissan electric job projections optimistic
Posted on November 12, 2009 at 1:32 pmDavid Penn at MTSU’s Business & Economic Research Center says the study prepared to help Rutherford County officials justify $62 million in tax breaks for Nissan was a tad too upbeat.
“The analysis done on the multiplier assumes that other jobs that Nissan has stays the same,” said Penn, who is also an economics associate professor for MTSU. “These models they use assume that all sources are fully employed to begin with, but we clearly know that’s not the case right now. So that brings down the multiplier a lot.”
For its part, the accused at Younger Associates say they’ve got the government backing them up.
“The analysis is based on the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis multipliers. They are specific to Rutherford County and they are specific to the automotive industry. They are reflective of the past performance of automotive operations in Rutherford County.”
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Cash for clunkers’ local boost
Posted on October 30, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Middle Tennessee’s factory sector saw a nice boost in activity during September, with hours worked at durable goods manufacturers jumping almost 20 percent.
This is how the housing inventory will be whittled down
Posted on at 9:14 am
Numbers from MTSU’s BERC show the value of Nashville-area building permits the past three months was only about a third of the volume from the boom years. Check out the raw numbers and other regional stats here.
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Four years till the good ol’ days
Posted on September 25, 2009 at 12:22 am
MTSU’s David Penn says it will take the Middle Tennessee job market until 2014 to recreate all the jobs that have been lost during this recession. On the flip side, that creation should begin by the end of the year, Penn told Thursday’s Economic Outlook Conference.
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The Middle Tennessee consumer is wheezing
Posted on September 2, 2009 at 5:28 pm
The researchers at MTSU’s Business & Economic Research Center have compiled the main indicators for the second quarter: Among the ‘highlights’ is another sizable drop in taxable sales, which can be used as a rough proxy for consumer spending. Sales fell almost 4 percent from early this year — their sixth straight quarterly drop — and are off more than 15 percent from the late-2007 peak.
It is difficult to imagine a scenario in which consumer spending leads the midstate to recovery in the absence of job growth. In coming months, however, housing construction should shift from a drag on tax collections to a positive contribution.
SEE ALSO: BERC’s latest update of the region’s building permit activity and other recent posts featuring economic indicators good and bad
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If you haven’t already, adjust your expectations
Posted on August 13, 2009 at 11:59 amIn a broad update of the economic picture, David Penn at MTSU’s Business & Economic Research Center says it does no good to look for big improvements in national or regional statistics. You’re only setting yourself up for sadness.
• Don’t make year-to-year comparisons (it is too depressing).
• Make comparisons with the previous month or previous quarter.
• Forget about ‘recovery’; settle for sustained improvement.
Think CEO salaries are too high?
Posted on August 11, 2009 at 8:12 am
Then chew on this executive compensation nugget from MTSU researchers.
Measured as a share of corporate earnings (after-tax profits), the S&P 500 CEOs share of earnings averaged about 2.4 percent over the entire 15 years from 1993-2007. … The CEO share of earnings generally rose from around 2.5 percent in the mid-1990s to a peak level of four percent in 1999 and, surprisingly, has trended downward since then, ending at a historically low level of about 1.6 percent of earnings in 2007.
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Tennessee’s housing chart turns up
Posted on August 10, 2009 at 11:16 am
The Volunteer State’s housing market continued its slow recovery, according to the researchers at MTSU’s Business & Economic Research Center.
As long as mortgage rates remain low and consumers slowly regain confidence, continued gradual improvement in the housing market can be expected. More robust growth for the housing market depends on sustained job growth, which for the present appears to be in the distant future.
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A blue-collar statistic dressed in red
Posted on July 28, 2009 at 7:07 am
The Nashville-area manufacturing sector is now downright hemmorhaging jobs. Year-over-year declines have increased from about 5 percent last summer to more than 13 percent. For the full set of numbers from MTSU’s Business & Economic Research Center, click here.
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Building permits show little life
Posted on July 27, 2009 at 6:39 pm
MTSU’s Business & Economic Research Center has tabulated the region’s residential building permits from June. The first-half tally is downright dismal: The $377 million worth of filings was the lowest since 1993 and just 30 percent of 2006’s peak.
Looking for an upside? Expect home inventories to continue to shrink in the coming months and help put a floor under prices, which have stubbornly stayed 8 percent below year-ago levels in recent months.
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Economist: Local jobless number may have peaked
Posted on May 28, 2009 at 2:58 pmOn the day the state’s jobless number edged closer to 10 percent, David Penn at MTSU says the local economy’s ‘dreadful’ first quarter may have been the worst we’ll see.
Initial claims have leveled off during the past several weeks, but this does not mean that the unemployment rate will soon begin to decline—far from it, as initial claims remain at a very high level. It does mean, however, that some of the upward pressure on unemployment has diminished; the high level of initial claims will continue to push the unemployment rate higher but not nearly as quickly as in the first quarter.
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The blue collars are taking it hardest
Posted on March 19, 2009 at 10:53 pm
The latest data set from MTSU’s Business & Economic Research Center shows that Nashville’s construction, mining and factory sectors have lost one out of 10 jobs in the past year. Only business services have lost more than 5 percent.
Other tidbits from the report: Airport activity is headed back toward 2006 levels and the city’s hotel sector performed better than the nation’s.
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The tale of the plummeting permits
Posted on March 2, 2009 at 3:36 pm
The value of Nashville-area home and apartment permits issued in January fell to less than $44 million, the lowest number since early 1993. At left are the last 12 months’ numbers.
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