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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We’ll be rid of her soon
Posted on November 18, 2009 at 7:29 amMTSU officials say they began taking formal action on Pam Holder’s employment status “immediately” after the nursing professor was sentenced for her role in a mortgage fraud scheme.
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Ex-MTSU professor sentenced in mortgage fraud scheme
Posted on November 17, 2009 at 7:24 am
Pam Holder, a former Tennessee Board of Regents official and professor of nursing at MTSU, has been sentenenced to 366 days in jail for her part in a mortgage fraud scheme that used straw buyers.
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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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Choosing the bottom line over the slice of pie
Posted on October 21, 2009 at 10:03 amMTSU’s Don Roy says Michael Dell has the right idea in putting profits over volume.
Building market share to the insecure guy who buys rounds of drinks for everyone at a bar. He has lots of friends (i.e., market share) as long as the drinks are flowing. When his fortunes change and the money to buy drinks is gone, so are many of his friends. At that point, the money the poor guy has little to show for his investment.
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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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Sports talk station goes quiet
Posted on July 29, 2009 at 4:42 pmNashville ESPN Radio affiliate 106.7 The Fan ended its run this morning after four and a half years, with officials running promos advertising a format switch Thursday. One of the biggest local players affected is MTSU’s athletic department, whose boss is crossing his fingers he can find a new partner before opening day.
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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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MTSU’s preferred pie
Posted on June 18, 2009 at 4:20 pm
The athletic department at Middle Tennessee State University has signed a three-year deal with franchisee Darrin Nicholson that will make Fox’s Pizza Den the school’s preferred pizza vendor. Fox’s is based in Pittsburgh and runs more than 300 restaurants around the country, including 11 in Tennessee.
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