Local economy blamed for cancellation of Spokane Pow Wow event

She says there wasnt enough funding for this years event. They accept a grant from the City of Spokane most years and this year the Parks and Recreation Department offered to wave $12,000 in fees. Still, that wasnt enough.

Major donors like Avista were able to pitch in, but Warren went on to explain that the downturn in the economy put a dent in donations from small businesses and the community.

via Downtown Spokane Pow Wow Canceled Due To Lack Of Funding – News Story – KXLY Spokane.

Related articles

• Spokane economy “contracting for decades now” (inlandnw.wordpress.com)
• Spokane area unemployment for July 2011 (inlandnw.wordpress.com)
• Spokane Airport passenger traffic update (inlandnw.wordpress.com)
• More retail vacancies open in the Spokane Valley (inlandnw.wordpress.com)

Spokane area unemployment for July 2011

• July 2011 preliminary unemployment estimate is 9.0%.
• Total non-farm employed: 201,100 (or 5,100 fewer than in June – that is bad)
• Total labor force: 225,220
• June’s 9.1% preliminary number was revised to 8.9% (this is good)
• 2010 average unemployment figure was 9.74%. From Jan-Jul, 2011, the average is 9.514%.

Last month: Spokane area unemployment worsens in June 2011 « Spokane Economic And Demographic Data.

In the data table that follows, the drop in non-farm employment to 201,100 is troubling. That is about 16,000 fewer jobs than in the same month in 2008 and is fewer jobs than in July of last year.

Year over Year Changes

While the employment situation has stabilized, the following chart shows that the area has continued to lose jobs.  We should watch this chart carefully over the next few months to see if we are headed back into recession, or just bouncing along the break even point.

This chart shows the year-over-year change in employment. All of the recent green bars below the zero line indicate losses. We do not want to stabilize here as that would mean we have stabilized at a new, lower employment level.

Low demand for highly educated, high skilled workers in Spokane

As shown in the post, below, pay for high skilled private sector workers in Spokane County (law, business, science and technology) is surprisingly low.

What It Means

• The demand for high skilled workers in Spokane County is low.
• There are about twice as many people with a 4-year degree as there are job openings needing a 4-year degree qualified worker*.
• There are about three times as many people with graduate degrees as there are job openings needing a graduate degree qualified worker*.
• The low demand for highly educated workers in Spokane is a likely reason wages for the highly skilled are so low.
• About 2/3ds of the job openings require a high school diploma or less.

Chart comes from the Community Indicators of Spokane.

Besides the “Recommendations” posted in the right most column of this web site, what else might be done to create an ecosystem demanding higher skilled workers in Spokane?

Update: Local PR news article refers to Spokane as a “blue collar city”, which helps to explain the low wage issue. This article is part of a lobbying effort to continue receiving a 30% taxpayer funded subsidy to movie makers in Washington. For amusement, see how the local TV news hacked this story down to a few meaningless sentences. Funny.

* About 25% of adults here have a 4-year degree but the demand is about 12% to 15% of job openings. About 10% have a graduate degree but the demand is about 2% to 4% of job openings. Spikes in 4-year degree job openings in 2007-2009 have to do with the recession when lower skilled workers were typically the first to get fired and higher skilled workers were the first to be hired.

Comparison of average wages between Spokane and King Counties

A sample of job categories was selected from the Workforce Explorer web site for Industry Trends. A few were dropped out because the job category did not exist in both counties.

• Most Spokane County workers are paid less and professional high skilled private sector workers are paid a lot less.
• While we have come to expect lower pay in Spokane, some of the differences are shocking.

Table of average wages in $s in Spokane versus King County. The difference is shown in the right most column. Bright green is higher. Dark green is “close”. Bright red is -24% or worse difference.

Occupation	Spokane	King County	Spokane Pay
Public Schools/Education
Teacher	33207	36051	-8%
Elementary Teacher	58227	55921	4%
Education administrator	100703	102037	-1%
Government workers
Firefighter	61987	72591	-15%
Police and Sheriff	64560	72205	-11%
Zoologists and wildlife biologists	57261	62254	-8%
Health Care
Pharmacist	107792	95782	13%
Registered Nurse	65735	77800	-16%
Physician assistant	88684	100508	-12%
Dentist	147660	159630	-7%
Nursing aides	24342	30917	-21%
Private Sector Jobs
Science and Technology
Industrial engineer	69391	83122	-17%
Mechanical engineer	62946	82890	-24%
Software engineer, apps	70504	94071	-25%
Software engineer, systems	74135	99318	-25%
Computer programmer	54288	95782	-43%
Chemist	50917	73321	-31%
Chemical technician	38653	35160	10%
Law & Business
Lawyer	90215	118674	-24%
Paralegal	35344	53588	-34%
Marketing manager	108781	125807	-14%
Sales manager	82235	119374	-31%
Advertising/promotions manager	48198	101550	-53%
Architect	83145	72237	15%
Editors	58218	61492	-5%
Reporters and correspondents	40346	54105	-25%
Labor
Roofer	35953	46263	-22%
Truck Driver	39584	43626	-9%
Sheet metal worker	35946	57792	-38%
Cooks, all other	23731	29322	-19%
Retail sales	21486	24151	-11%
Bus and truck mechanic	42489	51252	-17%
Hairdresser, stylist, cosmetologist	33459	32702	2%
Mobile heavy equip. mechanic	41968	59303	-29%

Wage data from the State’s Workforce Explorer Industry Trends section.

What It Means

• Education sector pays about the same.
• Government and health care pay some what less.
• Private sector highly educated workers are paid remarkably less.
• Those considering moving to Spokane need to consider the income ramifications of their career sector.
• At present pay levels, there will not be a science or technology cluster in Spokane. With extraordinarily low pay, Spokane will have difficulty attracting high quality scientists and engineers needed to create a regionally or nationally competitive science and technology cluster.
• At present pay levels, the same issue impacts creation of national classes businesses.
• “Editors” average is about the same in both counties. This may account for why there is little news coverage of the chronic low wage problem in Spokane – low wages do not affect them!  But reporters’ pay – ick!

Would be interesting to compare pay scales to Benton-Franklin counties, and to Clark County (Vancouver, Wa) area.

Related articles

• Spokane, King County and Washington inflation adjusted household median income charts (inlandnw.wordpress.com)
• STA Votes To Approve Electric Trolley (inlandnw.wordpress.com)
• Spokane’s economic plan du jour (inlandnw.wordpress.com)
• Spokane Airport passenger traffic update (inlandnw.wordpress.com)
• Spokane Median Income Growth Rate (inlandnw.wordpress.com)
• Percent of Spokane High School Seniors Taking the SAT Exam (inlandnw.wordpress.com)

Inflation Adjusted Average Wages in Spokane County

Good news – inflation adjusted average wages in Spokane County have gone up from 1990 to 2010.

Bad news – wage growth from 2001 to 2000 was 13.7% but wage growth from 2001 to 2009 was 5.5%.

• The second period was selected to start from the lowest post 2000 wage (the bottom in 2001) to the end of the series in 2010.
• The first period was selected to start in 1991 and run to 2000 (local peak) so that the same number of years would be in both groups.

What it means:  Wage growth in Spokane was much lower after the peak in 2000 and is now growing less than half as fast as prior years.

Oddity: Why did average wages shoot up in 2008 and 2009 in the midst of the worst recession since The Great Depression? Lower wage earners were laid off their jobs. Eliminating lower wage workers causes the average to rise.

Bottom line: Since 2000, average pay in Spokane has risen at a slower rate than prior to 2000. That’s unfortunate.

Reminder: The “average” is not the same as the “median”.

Related articles

• Spokane Median Income Growth Rate (inlandnw.wordpress.com)
• Spokane County Average Wages (not adjusted for inflation) (inlandnw.wordpress.com)
• Percent of Spokane High School Seniors Taking the SAT Exam (inlandnw.wordpress.com)
• Caterpillar Announces New Parts Distribution Center in Spokane (inlandnw.wordpress.com)
• Spokane Median Income Trend versus State of Washington Median Income Trend (inlandnw.wordpress.com)
• Spokane, King County and Washington inflation adjusted household median income charts (inlandnw.wordpress.com)
• Spokane’s economic plan du jour (inlandnw.wordpress.com)

Spokane County Average Wages (not adjusted for inflation)

We took a look at the median wage, a while back. Here is a chart of the average wage (the median is not the average) – NOT adjusted for inflation:

The chart is taken from the fantastic Community Indicators of Spokane web site.  Some day I will try to produce a version with inflation adjusted average wages. Currently, the average wage in Spokane County is about 20% less than that of Washington State. It is apparent from the chart that the difference is growing wider over time.

Bank of Whitman Fails, 12 of 20 branches closed

FDIC: Press Releases – PR-132-2011 8/5/2011.

12 of 20 Whitman branches are being shut down and 8 will be taken over by Columbia State Bank. Because Whitman was an employee stock ownership program bank, those employees with stock will lose their entire stock ownership value, as well as losing their jobs.

Previously, the two largest local regional banks, both based in Spokane (Sterling and AmericanWest), largely failed, as did a local credit union. These local banks made many local construction loans. With tighter contraints on lending now in effect, there will likely be less lending available for local construction projects and small businesses, which could slow Spokane’s economy further.

Other regional banks include Wheatland Bank, Bank of Fairfield, Washington Trust Bank and Inland Northwest Bank.

Incompetent management or poor economy in the Spokane area? Your choice. I lean towards bad management since many other banks did not fail.

Related:

• Sterling’s 1 for 66 reverse stock split
• Sterling completes re-capitalization program
• Sterling must raise $725 million
• The Union Credit Union closed by regulators
• AmericanWest Bancorp to file Chapter 11 Bankruptcy

Percent of Spokane High School Seniors Taking the SAT Exam

SAT exam scores are required for application to most 4-year college programs.

The percent of Spokane area high school seniors taking the SAT exam – and hence likely to be college bound – has continued its multi-year collapse.  57% of all Washington high school seniors took the SAT last year but in Spokane, the total is 36%.

This may solve the mystery as to the excitement over more low wage warehouse worker and call center jobs opening in Spokane:   that’s what the workforce here is qualified to do. But seriously, shouldn’t we be frightened of this trend? What steps could be undertaken to address this?

The data comes from the Community Indicators of Spokane web site and is updated from that previously shown on this blog.

Related: 80% to 92% of local community college students need to take remedial math. That compares to 60% nationally.

Updated January 2014:

Follow the line from left to right – the percent of Seniors taking the SAT has gone up nicely, albeit, still lagging the state as a whole (green line).

Related articles

• Spokane Airport passenger traffic update (inlandnw.wordpress.com)
• Southwest to abandon Seattle-Spokane route and SIA is not honest about it (inlandnw.wordpress.com)
• Spokane Airport News back in 2005 (inlandnw.wordpress.com)
• Spokane area unemployment worsens in June 2011 (inlandnw.wordpress.com)

Recession 2.0

Looks to me like the U.S. is back in a recession that began in the late spring, perhaps in May of 2011. I have been watching some data – about half of which turned down in the 2nd quarter – and the other half was positive but nothing to be excited about.

It may not be an official NBER declared recession, but it will still feel like one.

The country’s population goes up about 1% per year and if GDP growth is less than 1%, wouldn’t that mean per capita GDP growth would be negative and feel like a recession at the individual level?

Spokane Airports Update for June 2011

The data in chart form. Data for the first 6 months is used to estimate the remainder of the year 2011.

While the first six months enplanements are down -2.36%, the month of June is down -5.5% total which could be an early indicator that the economy is softening again but it is too early to tell for sure.

(Update: Port of Seattle shipments have declined -10.3% starting in May and continuing in June. BNSF and UP are carrying roughly equal freight loads to one year ago as of a few weeks ago, and one year ago was considerably less than prior to 2008. Bulk shipments of coal and grain by rail are also down about -10% YoY. Combined with the local airport numbers, this does look like the possible start of a new downturn.)

The official press release concerning SIA:

Note the reference to the use of airport data as an indicator of the local economic situation in Spokane. Even the tiniest increase shows “the local economy continues to improve”. Odd, though, how all the decreases in airport usage and service apparently indicate no changes in the local economy!

Charter aircraft services out of SIA are down -46.3% since last year.  Charters have been below last year for 4 of the preceding 6 months, and sharply lower in June, with a decrease of -77%. But cargo is indeed up slightly, which is good.

It seems likely that 2011 passenger enplanements will be just below 2010, and 2012 is likely to be at or slightly below 2011 levels due to the loss of the Southwest flights to Seattle. But things could change for the better in 2012. While Alaska Air will add 2 flights to replace those lost by Southwest, Alaska will be flying smaller aircraft with just over 1/2 the seats that Southwest provided.

The official press release concerning Felts:

While June cargo at Felts Field is up for June, for the year, cargo through Felts Field is down -45%.

After a couple of months of good weather, we may have a better understanding as to whether the first half Felts Field traffic drop was due to weather or something else.

REMINDER: The airport is a proxy for the local economy. The fall off in flights, non-stop destinations and passengers is primarily a reflection of the local and national economy . The data suggest that Spokane’s economy is doing worse than elsewhere. The data presented do not mean that airport management is (presently) doing a bad job, although their PR spin is amusing.

Related articles

• About half of Spokane airline flights to be flown on turbo props (inlandnw.wordpress.com)
• Spokane Airport News back in 2005 (inlandnw.wordpress.com)
• Trend in Spokane “International” Airport Passenger Levels Versus National Air Passenger Levels (inlandnw.wordpress.com)
• Spokane Airport passenger traffic update (inlandnw.wordpress.com)
• Spokane “International” Airport non-stop destinations as of January 2012 (inlandnw.wordpress.com)
• Spokane area unemployment worsens in June 2011 (inlandnw.wordpress.com)
• Spokane Median Income Growth Rate (inlandnw.wordpress.com)