Fourteen years after starting the University of North Florida’s Local Economic Indicators Project (LEIP) to provide more comprehensive data on Jacksonville’s economy, Paul Mason is leaving UNF.
But at least he’s leaving LEIP, and the local economy, in good shape.
Mason’s final quarterly LEIPLINE newsletter, a summary of current conditions and the economic forecast, paints a positive picture for the Northeast Florida economy.
LEIP’s index of leading indicators for the Jacksonville area “has forgotten how to go down so far in 2016,” the newsletter said.
The index, which forecasts conditions two to three months ahead, rose in each of the first four months of this year, “so the summer and early fall look excellent for the Jacksonville area,” LEIPLINE said.
The unemployment rate in the Jacksonville area continues to be well below the national jobless rate, which is mostly good news.
“The influx of new companies relocating to Jacksonville combined with recovering local business demand for workers has spurred the positive employment sector. The continuing adverse circumstance is that much of the employment growth is from lower wage jobs,” LEIPLINE said.
“We forecast a continuation of the declining unemployment rates locally throughout the next four months, approaching 4.1 percent by August. If this outcome occurs we will definitively be in the full employment range for Jacksonville, something far beyond expectations eight years ago when the local unemployment rate was over 12 percent,” it said.
The consumer price index for the Jacksonville area jumped higher in April, showing an annualized inflation rate of 6.8 percent for the month, “well above the vast majority of previous increases,” it said.
Most of the increases resulted from higher housing prices and the return of rising gasoline prices.
“We will have to wait and see if April is the beginning of a trend, whether the Fed follows through with anticipated rate increases, and whether the strong housing growth and energy price increases continue,” LEIPLINE said.
The Jacksonville area CPI is the most labor-intensive economic data produced by LEIP. Since it was founded at UNF in 2002, LEIP has sent out students from the Coggin College of Business to gather data on prices of goods and services in the Jacksonville area.
Mason said LEIP has expanded both the number of goods and the geographic reach in Northeast Florida for the CPI since it began.
LEIP has stayed true to its mission over those 14 years, he said.
“The whole purpose was to provide economic data for local businesses,” Mason said.
Mason said a number of businesses use LEIP’s data for their forecasts and if the data is late, he hears about it from those companies. So he knows LEIP has had an impact.
“It’s been ingrained in the community,” he said.
Mason is retiring from UNF to become dean of the School of Business at McMurry University in Abilene, Texas. However, LEIP will continue under the direction of UNF economics professor Ching-Ping (Albert) Loh.
“All of the LEIP indicators seem to be moving in the positive direction,” LEIPLINE said.
“Recognizing that forecasters like us do not generate the outcomes in a region, only track them, it appears that Dr. Mason is leaving Jacksonville on a very high note for economic conditions. Let us see if Dr. Loh can keep it going.”