berc

Friday, February 17, 2012

Tennessee Housing Market Report 4th Quarter 2011

http://frank.mtsu.edu/~berc/housingbrief.html

Friday, February 10, 2012

Initial Unemployment Claims for January 2012

The trend for average weekly claims for unemployment insurance dipped to 6,587 for January for Tennessee, the lowest level since April 2008. A drop in initial claims occurs when employers let go fewer employees. Initial claims have been in decline since the peak of 13,400 in March 2009. Though claims have been falling, the unemployment rate has generally not declined until very recently: between August and December 2011, the unemployment rate dropped one full percentage point as employers curtailed layoffs and began to hire additional workers.

[See graph at Tracking Tennessee's Economic Recovery.]

—David Penn, BERC Director

Nashville Area's Consumer Debt Level Ticks Higher

Tennessean, Feb. 7, 2012

"People typically borrow and spend more when they’re feeling better about the economy, said David Penn, a Middle Tennessee State University economist."

Monday, February 6, 2012

Tracking Tennessee's Economic Recovery

See page 4: http://www.tncounties.org/files/TN_County_News_Jan-Feb2012.pdf

Tracking Tennessee's Economic Recovery website ( http://frank.mtsu.edu/~berc/tacir/tacir.html ) is profiled on page 4 of the current issue of Tennessee County News, a publication of the Tennessee County Services Association.

The Tracking Tennessee's Economic Recovery site features the latest economic data as well as a five-year history for the state, 95 counties, and 10 metropolitan statistical areas. It is produced by MTSU's Business and Economic Research Center in partnership with TACIR (Tennessee Advisory Council on Intergovernmental Relations).

Data for counties includes:

labor force
employment
unemployment
unemploymne rate
state sales tax trend
real estate transfer tax trend

Data for the state and 10 MSAs include:

sales tax
unemployment
nonfarm employment
total employment
total housing permits

Graphs are also included for:

nonfarm employment
nonfarm employment growth
unemployment rate
sales tax collections
single-family building permits

Monday, January 30, 2012

Auto Suppliers Bring Additional Jobs to Middle Tennessee

News Sentinel (Jan. 30, 2012); Tennessean (Jan. 20, 2012)
"For each direct new hire made by the automakers themselves, there will be as many as three new positions created by suppliers to the auto plants, many of which will locate close to the vehicle-assembly facilities, said David Penn, an economist at Middle Tennessee State University who tracks employment trends."