7/8/22 On The Mark: Mark & Ben host Financial Friday with special guest John Kerschner, Fine Line Homes
As is typical with this program, we kicked off the morning by responding to the breaking economic news of that morning. The show’s host, Mark Lawrence and his co-host Ben Reichley keep Art and me ‘on our A-game,’ with about two minutes to process this news before we go ‘On The Air.’ To stay ahead of this ‘fire hose of economic data,’ I draft a ‘What to Watch For…’ briefing each month. Thought you might like to read over our ‘show prep.’
By the way, the economists who the chamber tracks turned out to be a little un-necessarily pessimistic with their low prediction on their report of the number of jobs created. While the actual number of jobs created was down slightly from the previous month, still 372,000 jobs created was impressive. One national commentator suggested that this was a ‘robust’ economic report. Most of the job creation last month was in the Leisure & Hospitality, Healthcare, and Professional Services sectors.
Please note that red highlights in this month’s What to Watch For… are actual numbers as compared to what the economists projected for last Friday’s report.
WHAT TO WATCH FOR…
Chamber Friday “On The Mark” 1070AM
for July 8, 2022
By Bob Garrett
This month, Art Thomas, GSVCC Board Chair and President of Meck-Tech & Diversified Construction and I will continue take up the challenge received from On The Mark host, Mark Lawrence to keep our focus on the ‘most thorny’ economic issues facing our valley. For this show we will discuss the ever-increasing shortage of suitable housing stock and its effect on the workforce gaps in our area.
We will be joined by Mr. John A. Kerschner, AICP, Vice President, Fine Line Homes, to discuss the state of homebuilding and development today in our state. We will cover the opportunities, and impediments which homebuilders face, and the current trends involving construction costs, land acquisition, and homebuying. The abundance of regulations, at all levels of government, will be a substantial part of this discussion.
Prior to this discussion with Mr. Kerchner, Art and I will respond, along with show co-host Ben Reichley, to the July 2022 Employment Situation Report, aka the unemployment rate. For this month’s report, the consensus of economists is that we will detect a natural economic slowdown beginning to appear, but no broad weakness. Most predictions of the number of jobs created in June to be around 275,000. (Actual was 372,000 jobs.) This would be one of the smallest month-over-month gain since the pandemic recovery started, but any number over 250,000 is still significant.
The government is reporting that there are currently 11.3 million open positions nationwide. This amounts to 1.9 jobs for every job seeker.
Unemployment rate: 3.6% (no change) Correct
Wages: +5.25% (down 0.5%%) Correct-the average hourly wage in the U.S. is $28.15
Average Work Week: 34.8 hours (down 0.5%) Actual was 34.5 hours/week
Participation rate: 62.3% (no change) Actual was a drop to 62.2%
So how are we doing?
According to the PA Department of Labor (workstats.dli.pa.gov/dashboards/Pages/Labor-Stats.aspx) county-by-county report, Greater Susquehanna Valley counties are continuing to be among those with the lowest unemployment rates. Montour (3.2%) has slipped out of its ‘lowest in the state’ category but is still coming at 3rd in the state behind Chester County (2.8%) and Cumberland County (2.9%). Union (3.4%) and Snyder (3.8%) are in the group of about ten counties at or below the national average unemployment rate. Northumberland County dropped below 5.0 % to 4.9%.
