April 2018 Press Release

Tallahassee Economy Stagnates Reliable Sectors of Growth Show Weakness in April

Tallahassee, FL – The Tallahassee Economic Index (TEI), the city’s top economic growth indicator, today released numbers ending April 2018. Following a 2.50 point slide in March, the Index moved lower by 2.98 from 45.71 to 42.73 in April.

“We saw the index fall several points again this month, weighed down by nine of the fifteen categories seeing negative year over year change. Some of our most reliable areas of growth faltered this time around, including some real estate and unemployment numbers ” said TEI Founder Brett F. Ewing. “ One of our favorite business spending categories, Store and Office Equipment, fell 29.16% from last April, the worst annualized fall since 2011. We also saw a sharp contraction in realtor sales on both a monthly and yearly basis. While price continues to hold up for now, if inventory starts to increase we could be beginning to see the precursors to what begets weaker growth in housing.

“For the first time in nearly five years we have seen four straight months of contraction in the index,” said Lance Mitchell, Director of Research at the TEI.“We saw a large spike up in initial claims for reemployment assistance & while it is coming off a low base, we have not hit a new low since September. On a brighter note, the airport continues to deliver great numbers as April saw the best yearly passenger growth since 2010.

• Initial Claims for Reemployment Assistance jumped by 25.09 percent in April from March, and 4.38 percent from April of last year
• Realtor Sales fell 17.59 percent from March, and also lost 10.6% from a year ago
• Median Existing Home Sales Prices gained .22 percent from March, and 7.62 percent from last April
• Airport Traffic shrank 2.41 percent from last month, and increased 16.96 percent from April of last year
• New Construction Permits slumped 26.09 percent from March, but advanced 30.77 percent from last April