The economic forecast for Northwest Florida


  • October 15, 2015
  • /   Shannon Nickinson
  • /   economy

Rick Harper is a constant at the Gulf Power Economic Symposium.

Harper’s forecast for the next six months has been a staple of the utility company’s annual gathering of business, government and economic development leaders which will be in its 20th year next year.

Among his many titles, Harper is senior fellow for the Studer Community Institute. It is under his guidance that we put together the Pensacola Metro Dashboard. Those 16 metrics are meant to give a snapshot of the economic, educational and social well-being of the community.

Warren Buffett may be the Oracle of Omaha, but Harper is the Guru of the Gulf Coast.

What did he see in the horizon for Northwest Florida? Here are some of the highlights:

— The Industry Recruitment Retention and Expansion Fund, funded by the Florida Legislature in the wake of the 2010 BP oil spill to diversify the region’s economy, is on round two. The fund drew down all $30 million appropriated to it. Some of the companies that got grants from the fund in the first round did not meet the jobs requirements that came along with the money.

Some $5 million has been returned to the fund, Harper said, and it is up for grabs.

Who got Oil Spill Recovery Act dollars?

Companies receiving IRREF dollars under the Oil Spill Recovery Act:

— ST Aerospace: $7 million, 500 jobs

— Navy Federal Credit Union: $4,930,000; 7,200 jobs

— iSirona (health care): $1,850,000, 345 jobs

— MarJam (building materials):  $157,000, 12 jobs

— Grayton Beer: $542,000, 40 jobs

— Global Business Systems: $1,400,000, 120 jobs.

— Offshore Inland (maritime services): $500,000, 100 jobs

— Bit Wizards (high tech): $255,458, 30 jobs

— On-Point Defense Technologies: $249,250, 29 jobs

— Intelligent Retinal Imaging Systems: $450,000, 15 jobs

— International Paper: $3,000,000, 436 jobs

— DeepFlex (marine pipeline manufacturer.): $1,000,000, 100 jobs

— Sun Coast Converters (diesel transmission products): $210,000, 34 jobs.

— Job growth. In height of the recession, Florida was losing jobs at the rate of 7% a year. We had climbed out of it by 2010, but since then, Florida has really taken off, Harper said. posting solid job growth in recent months.

“Recession worries are muted even though we are now well into the expansion phase, in our sixth year of economic recovery,” Harper said. “Though sometimes it doesn’t feel like a recovery.”

The recession is defined as the time period from December 2007 to June 2009.

“We can’t be job snobs, but we need more,” Harper said.

Job sectors in Northwest Florida that have been growing: Education and health care, administrative, leisure and hospitality.

Government and manufacturing sectors have been shrinking, Harper said. Military job growth is flat, but “the rest of the economy has grown up around it.”

— Housing. A house that cost $100,00 in 2000, by 2006 it was worth $240,000 in the state.  

“Our housing boom made the rest of the U.S. look anemic,” Harper said. “We also had a massive bust — 53 percent of construction workers lost their jobs from 2006-2010,” Harper said. “Now today there is substantial shortage in skilled trades, but by 2015, we see Florida home values are expanding more rapidly than the nation.”

For the Pensacola metro area, home prices are now above 2000 levels, but still below boom-levels.

— Who is working. Women’s labor force participation rate has trended downward, down about 5 percentage points at start of recession in 2006, Harper said.

Income has been stagnant for decades. In the 1960s, we sent our spouses into the workforce. In the 1980s the national savings rate feel to 5 percent from 14 percent. Until 2006, people took out home equity lines of credit and spent that money.

“What we have to find is the next trick to getting spending up, productivity up, because it is a virtuous circle,” Harper said.” One person’s business creates another person’s income.”

Pop quiz. There are 195 Census tracts in Northwest Florida. Where is the tract with the highest education level? The highest median income? The lowest education level? The lowest median wage level?

All four are in Escambia County – highest education level (Cordova Park) , highest wage level (Perdido Key), lowest education level (Brownsville), lowest wage level (south and west of Baptist Hospital).

Increasingly, Harper said, we sort ourselves by demographics and income. “That has never been more true than it is in the U.S. today,” he said. “It means we set up pockets of poverty.”

 
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