First, the good news: Building permits and help wanted ads have both been trending upward for the past three months while unemployment insurance claims have been going down, according to the latest issue of the Humboldt Economic Index. These three categories are considered the best indicators of where our local economy is headed (i.e. the right direction). Also, lumber manufacturing increased last month by a whopping 22.5 percent over the previous month.
In fact, after two and a half years of fairly rapid declines, the Humboldt County economy has rebounded nicely since last October. Huzzah.
But look a little closer and it’s not all gravy.
We said the three-month trends are good, and they are. But last month in particular…not so good. Building permits declined 29 percent; help wanted ads fell 8 percent.
Month-to-month fluctuations can be just that — fluctuations. Or they could be signs that we have yet to hit bottom.
Consider the housing market: The median-priced Humboldt County home in January (the most recent month available) was $246,200, according to the Humboldt Association of Realtors. That’s the lowest it’s been since May 2004. It was also the fourth straight month of declines. Affordability (a measure of how close the typical family is to qualifying for a mortgage on a typical home) stands at 27 percent. That’s way better than its mid-bubble nadir of 10 percent but still well below pre-bubble levels, which hovered in the 40s.
(Curious side note: The most expensive homes sold were in McKinleyville, which posted a median price of $337,500 compared to Arcata’s $262,500, Eureka’s $245,600 and Fortuna’s freakishly low $144,250. Humboldt County Association of Realtors bookkeeper Staci Bishop had to quadruple-check that last figure, and she said it likely was just a fluke: Only four homes were listed there last month. Musta been doozies.)
Retail sales and hospitality also declined significantly. HSU Economics Professor Erick Eschker concludes, “despite aggressive government measures, sustained high unemployment, record foreclosures and weak sales continue.”
Sigh.
Update: In January, Humboldt County’s jobless rate jumped 1.3 percent from the previous month, landing at 12.7 percent, according to information released Wednesday by the North Coast Region of the state’s Employment Development Division. That number is still slightly below California’s rate of 13.2 percent.
This article appears in Klamath: Direct Action!.
It’s interesting that this "report" is made using data from outside-the-area sources. So some HSU hack digs up a bunch of someone else’s info and then wraps it up all pretty in a PDF? I see no use in this report. It only states statistics, which tell only a tiny part of the story. The most important question or statement that should be made (and they didn’t bother to check on it) is WHY this is the way it is.
Burns, my boy, you suppose and inquire, which is our job. Your job is to tell us WHY as well as who, what, when, where, and how.
Just because you got something up on the site doesn’t mean it’s good reporting. I’d rather wait for the truth than get a guess fast.
I disagree with the comment above. Good report, Ryan. Thanks.
Yes, the nerve of someone to do research, gather sources, and condense the information into neat pdf form. How dare they…
Being in the trenches on the private sector, its not all that great out there, orders are still low, however we are not heading down as hard as we were, not having to do layoffs, maintaining and trying to find a few quality hardworking employees. Looked at the newspaper and saw under 15 jobs advertised recently, not sure how to scale this report is.
Wouldnt want to be a state, county or city employee based on what they are saying is on the near horizon for the public sector- http://www.cnbc.com/id/35777695
Thanks for the report- remember the last group of people to bash it were the realtors back in 08.
@Name March 9 2:45 pm:
You refer to the HSU folks who prepare the Humboldt Economic Index has hacks. Pretty strong stuff. You also claim that the report “digs up a bunch of someone else’s info and then wraps it up all pretty in a PDF.”
The name-calling is mean-spirited, and in fact is wrong on the plain language meaning of the word hack.
More importantly, the claim that the report is just a bunch of someone else’s information is plain wrong.
While the Humboldt Econ Index does in fact use some secondary data from EDD (empl) and HAR (home prices), much of the report is derived from monthly primary data gathering by the Index staff.
Each month they use surveys to gather data on lumber manufacturing, on lumber orders, on help-wanted ads, on occupancy rates at a sample of hotels/motels/inns, and on retail sales at a sample of retailers. Nobody else is able to provide monthly information on electricity consumption in Humboldt, thanks to a long-standing arrangement with PG&E.
So, “name,” your hack comment is revealing of a mean-spiritedness, and your statement about the data is wrong.
You got pwned, Name.
Maybe Name was trying to write "Hackett" but got sleepy. It’s so difficult to infer meaning from the anonymous class.
Whenever you see an anonymous comment decrying what they refer to as hacks, shills, etc., you can pretty much figure out the familiar quarter from which it emanates.
That would be the online natterers who don’t want to work hard enough to ever accomplish anything in the real world, tearing down those who do. Envy? That’s my theory.
Some people will hate on anything. Do a bad job, they hate. Do a good job, they hate more.