INDEX
OF ECONOMIC ACTIVITY FOR HUMBOLDT COUNTY
Professor Steven
Hackett, Director
April 1997
| Key Statistics | Leading Indicators |
|---|
| County: | Seasonally Adjusted | %Change
in Feb. |
| Median Home Price (Mar)* | $111,500 | Help Wanted Advertising | -6.7% |
| 30 Yr. Mortgage Rate (4/22) | 8.25% | Building Permits | -2.4% |
| Prime Rate (4/22) | 8.50% | Unemployment
Claims | 11.0% |
| Unemployment Rate (Mar) | 7.6% | Manufacturing Orders | -4.1% |
*Home price data are provided by the Humboldt County Board of Realtors
Monthly Change
The index of economic activity fell from a revised 106.6 in
February to
105.5 in March, a 1.03 percent decline. Home sales, employment
and the manufacturing sector all increased in March. The
economy gained 600 jobs in March, bringing total employment to
57,700. These gains, however, were more than offset by declines
in retail sales, hospitality, and energy. The graph below plots
the seasonally and non-seasonally adjusted values from January
1994 through March 1997. The non-seasonally adjusted index
increased from 106.5 to 112.2 in March due to strong gains in
the unadjusted retail and manufacturing data. The common trend
in Humboldt County is for the non-seasonally adjusted index to
bottom out in January, and then climb until August. The pattern
in 1997 follows this trend thus far.
Quarterly Change
Due to the high variability in the monthly data, we also report economic
activity on a quarterly basis. The bar chart below displays the change
in the seasonally adjusted index components between the fourth quarter of
1996 (October through December) and the first quarter of 1997 (January
through March). The quarterly composite index rose 1.1 percent to a
seasonally adjusted value of 104.9, from 103.7 in the fourth quarter of
1997. Retail sales and manufacturing increased, while housing,
employment, hospitality, and energy decreased. Part of the rise in
retail sales is due to an expansion of one of our participating
retailers. This expansion led to a permanent increase in the index. The
decline in home sales is particularly striking. There was a total of 169
seasonally adjusted home sales in the first quarter of 1997, compared to
261 home sales in the fourth quarter of 1996.
Leading Indicators
To indicate future change in the economy, we track four leading
indicators: help wanted advertising, building permits issued, claims
for unemployment insurance, and manufacturing orders. As indicated by
the table above, all the indicators declined except claims for
unemployment insurance. An increase in claims, however, suggests that
more people are out of work. Therefore, we project that the index of
economic activity for Humboldt County will decline slightly in April.
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