Jacksonville’s economy definitely is recovering, but it still has a way to go to catch up with the levels it reached in 2007 before the recession, according to currently available data.
The Daily Record looked at four economic indicators that have current data available: employment, taxable retail sales, single-family building permits issued and median home prices.
The national recession began in December 2007 and ended in June 2009.
Data reviewed by the Daily Record show the Northeast Florida economy likely fell into recession in late 2007 and began to recover in mid-2010, although the real estate market continues to lag and overall growth remains slow.
The four indicators peaked from 2005-07 and hit their lows from 2010-11 before starting to recover.
In summary, it appears that employment peaked in May 2007 and hit its subsequent low in January 2010.
Taxable sales hit a high in December 2005 and reached a low in January 2010.
Housing prices peaked in October 2006 and hit a low in January this year.
And monthly single-family building permits peaked at 1,010 in August 2005, reaching a low of 49 in January 2011.
Unemployment: Recovery shaky
Nonagricultural employment in the Jacksonville metropolitan area reached a high of 639,100 in May 2007 and hit a subsequent low of 574,000 in January 2010.
Looking closely at the monthly data, employment at nonfarm businesses in the Jacksonville area, measured year over year, continued to grow every month from January 2005 through November 2007.
Then jobs began to disappear.
The number of jobs in December 2007 was 0.2 percent lower than December 2006, and the number continued to fall every month through June 2010, with sharp drops throughout 2009.
The first sign of recovery came in July 2010, when the employment level was 0.2 percent higher than July 2009.
Employment has basically been growing ever since, but the pace of growth has slowed again this year and there even was a slight decline in March.
So the recovery does seem to be shaky.
Taxable sales: Recovery began earlier
Taxable sales reported by Duval County retailers to the Florida Department of Revenue hit a high in December 2005 at $2.11 billion.
The lowest amount since then was in January 2010, at $1.3 billion.
The most recent report, in April, showed sales of $1.58 billion.
The taxable sales data indicate the downturn started even earlier than the employment numbers show. Monthly sales began to fall in February 2007 on a year-over-year basis.
The recovery in sales also began a bit earlier than the increase in employment, with most months showing increases since March 2010 after big declines in 2009.
Home prices: Long way from peak
You probably already know this but the housing market is a long way from recovering to its pre-recession levels.
The median sales price of homes in the area was $149,000 in June, well below the median price of $203,000 in October 2006, according to data from the Northeast Florida Association of Realtors.
The lowest price was $115,000 in January this year.
Housing permits: Also lagging
With the housing sales market slow to recover, construction also is lagging, according to the building permit data.
Statistics from the Northeast Florida Builders Association show the number of permits issued in Duval County for single-family houses peaked at 1,010 in August 2005.
Compare that to the lowest number of single-family permits issued since then — 49 — in January 2011. The number rose to 132 in May.
Interestingly, the monthly peak of 1,010 was almost equal to the total number of single-family permits issued for all of last year – 1,091.
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