While Rajeev Dhawan, director of the Economic Forecasting Center at Georgia State University, didn’t have a lot of good news for many of Georgia’s economic sectors into next year, there were a few glimmers.
In his Forecast of the Nation report released on Aug. 22 he foresees a slowdown in U.S. economic growth into early 2013 due to poor consumer and corporate confidence.
In his view, the ongoing recession in Europe and slower growth in China also are to contribute to the slide in the gross domestic product.
Local construction would continue to flag, he told more than 50 attendees at the university’s Speakers Auditorium for his quarterly economic review.
But the economic situation could be even worse, he adds, if not for the continuing solvency crisis throughout Europe, which continues to make U.S. debt attractive to foreign buyers.
And, more locally, he was optimistic that education, health and hospitality sectors will perform as Atlanta’s “growth engines” for the next three years.
Education and health are to experience increases of 2.8 percent in 2012, 2.1 percent in 2013 and 2.4 percent in 2014 – adding 20,600 jobs over the next three years.
The hospitality sector also is to provide the local economy a boost, according to Dr. Dhawan. This sector is to increase payrolls by 0.5 percent in 2012, 1 percent in 2013 and 1.5 percent in 2014 adding more than 8,000 jobs from 2012-14.
These categories are to account for a quarter of Atlanta’s entire workforce by 2014, but only 20 percent of job creation.
Atlanta also will benefit from the growth of professional and business services, which he predicts will provide slightly less than 45,000 new jobs by the end of 2014.
Overall, Dr. Dhawan expects the Atlanta area to see the creation of about 40,000 jobs in the next two years before rising more rapidly in 2014.
For more information on his forecast, visit http://robinson.gsu.edu/efc/index.html