As I noted in a recent column, the Georgia Department of Labor estimates that the Savannah metropolitan area (Chatham, Effingham and Bryan counties) now has as many jobs as it had before the labor market was hammered by the 2007-2009 recession.
Employment is generally considered a lagging indicator of economic conditions, so we didn’t really begin seeing bad employment data until several months into 2008.
Indeed, February 2008 probably looked pretty solid to those who ignored all the worrisome signals from the housing market.
According to the data, there were 161,000 payroll jobs in the Savannah metro area in February 2008. In February 2014, we had 161,500.
So are we back to where we were six years ago?
Not really.
The metro population has grown significantly since 2008. We would probably have more than 170,000 payroll jobs if not for the severe downturn and the sluggish recovery.
And not all economic sectors have been similarly impacted over the last six years.
Sure, nearly all categories of employment were hit hard in the aftermath of the financial crisis, but some were hit harder than others and some have rebounded far better.
So for the rest of this column I’ll be comparing the estimates of local payrolls for February 2008 versus February 2014. The numbers provide an interesting snapshot of the ways in which the regional economy has changed.
If you’ve been following economic news closely, or even just reading my ramblings over the years, you can probably already guess which sectors have fared the worst and the best.
First, the losers
In February 2008, the Savannah metro area had 9,300 payroll jobs in construction, logging and mining. Six years later, we have just 5,300 jobs in that sector.
In early 2008, some local investors were still optimistically dumping tons of money into housing, despite warnings about our horribly overextended local market. That overconfidence made the fall even harder.
The Savannah metro area also has seen a significant decline in government employment over the last six years, from 23,700 to 23,100.
That number includes an increase of a statistically insignificant 100 in state government employment, but also declines of 500 in local government employment and of 200 in federal employment.
We are likely to see continued declines in federal employment in the area, and we know from broader statewide data sets that about half of job losses in local government have impacted education.
A few other sectors have lost jobs over the last six years. The most prominent of those is wholesale trade, which is down 600 jobs from 2008.
Since 2008, the Savannah metro area has also lost 100 jobs in financial activities, 200 jobs in information and 300 jobs in transportation, warehousing and utilities.
The good news is that most of the sectors with net losses have been seeing recent gains. Those gains just haven’t been enough to make up for the precipitous fall.
And the winners are:
The Savannah metro area had an estimated 19,800 payroll jobs in leisure and hospitality in February 2008. The number ballooned to 23,100 in February 2014.
Employment in education and health services jumped from 22,100 in February 2008 to 23,900 in February 2014. That increase seems pretty easy to explain. Savannah is a regional hub in a nation with climbing medical costs and an aging population.
Over the six-year span, we have also gained 1,100 jobs in the broad category of professional and business services.
Two other areas saw minor gains. Both retail trade and manufacturing have added 300 jobs since 2008.
A few of these sectors seem poised for continued expansion.
And what next?
Even if homebuilding picks up, it’s entirely possible the Savannah area will never see the kind of construction employment we saw before the recession.
On the other hand, we should expect continued growth in a couple of sectors that are already growing steadily: health services and tourism.
Given current trends, we can reasonably expect expansion in sectors like those, but what else can we be doing to diversify the local economy?
Economic development officials have been exploring a variety of answers to that question.
We may not know what the future will look like, but we do know that the local job market has gone through some pretty dramatic changes over the last six years.
City Talk appears every Tuesday and Sunday. Bill Dawers can be reached at billdawers@comcast.net. Send mail to 10 East 32nd St., Savannah, Ga. 31401.