Economist: Atlanta could add 140,000 jobs this year
Jan 8, 2015, 2:58pm EST UPDATED: Jan 9, 2015, 1:22pm EST
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Douglas Sams
Commercial Real Estate Editor- Atlanta Business Chronicle
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Metro Atlanta is poised for its strongest year of job growth since the city hosted the 1996 Olympics.
Spurred by the fall in gasoline prices, the return of consumer confidence, and low interest rates, the metro region could add up to 140,000 jobs this year, independent economist Marci Rossell told a group of Atlanta commercial real estate professionals Thursday.
Metro Atlanta added 60,000 jobs in 2013 and almost 100,000 jobs in 2014 through November, said Rossell, former chief economist with CNBC. Rossell was speaking before the real estate organizations CREW Atlanta and CoreNet Global, Atlanta Chapter.
The prediction is sure to raise eyebrows.
The last time Atlanta was posting just year-over-year employment growth at greater than 100,000 jobs a year was 1999, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In July 1996, the year Atlanta hosted the Olympics, the region posted year-over-year gains of 147,000 jobs.
For Atlanta, annual job growth of 140,000 would be astounding. That said, the region is racking up impressive economic development wins.
The forecast comes on the heels of Daimler AG choosing metro Atlanta as the new home of its Mercedes-Benz USA headquarters, a move that could bring 800 to 1,000 jobs to the region. State Farm Insurance Co. could employ up to 8,000 on its new Dunwoody campus, a project announced last year. Construction is already underway.
Metro Atlanta's unemployment rate for November fell to 6.5 percent, down five-tenths of a percentage point from 7.0 percent in October, according to the Georgia Department of Labor. Professional and business services and construction have seen some of the strongest employment growth. SunTrust Park, the new ballpark and mixed-use development for the Atlanta Braves, could employ up to 5,000 as construction picks up. The Atlanta Falconshave also started building their new downtown stadium.
A huge drop in oil prices is helping spark the U.S. economy now several years removed from the deepest recession since the Great Depression. Historically, oil prices have plummeted in response to falling demand during downturns.
This time the price-drop is driven by "supply shock," Rossell said, as the United States now produces more barrels of oil per day than Saudi Arabia, according to the Energy Information Administration.
"Prices are falling because supply is rising," Rossell told the Atlanta real estate leaders. "We need to almost start thinking about oil prices the way we think about computers. Have price declines been bad for Silicon Valley? Has the proliferation of smartphones been bad for Apple? The oil industry is looking more like the computer industry."
Rossell observed one job market trend that gives her pause: the labor force participation rate, which is hovering about 63 percent. It would suggest job seekers who had trouble finding work out of the recession may have given up.
Rossell called the participation rate worrisome.
Douglas Sams covers Commercial Real Estate
