Regional Economy Continues Slump in August: One bright spot commercial valuation up 23%.

Low wages continue to have mixed effects on the area, helping to maintain a lower unemployment rate in the area but continuing to limit spending that would stimulate the local economy.

Good news was scarce in the monthly economic data produced by the Corpus Christi Regional Economic Development Corporation. Continued decreases in sales tax collections and residential building permits along with increased unemployment were the main indicators that things haven’t yet turned around in the Coastal Bend.
In Corpus Christi building permits were down 21% (455 from 574) over Year To Date (YTD) figures from July 08. That’s on top of a drop of 49% from the peak in 2006 to 2008. Even worse the value of those permitted projects over last year was down 44% indicating smaller houses, remodeling and other lower value construction projects. One bright spot was while new commercial permits fell 23% new commercial valuation was up 23% at $52,842,930 YTD over July 2008 indicates some bigger projects are coming online.
Tourism is one of the areas still suffering from tight consumer spending with enplanements at Corpus Christi International Airport was down 22% over July of last year. Enplanements have already dropped 2% in 2007 and 9% in 2008. Low plane enplanement factors into carriers’ decisions on frequency and availability of service.
Unemployment continued to climb with the Texas Workforce Commission reporting unemployment for the last 13 month period at 8%, slightly lower than the Texas figure of 8.2% and the national average of 9.8%. Unfortunately the cost of living has continued to rise to 93.4 in the first quarter of 2009 from 88 in the first quarter of last year. The national average is 100 with Houston coming in at 89.2.
Sales tax collections showed an interesting pattern possibly indicating people are shopping closer to home instead of traveling regionally to buy. While Alice, Beeville, Corpus Christi and all had decreases in sales tax collection, Aransas Pass, Port Aransas, Kingsville and Robstown all had slight increases. Portland had the largest increase of 9% YTD over August of last year and Alice the biggest loss at 23%. Corpus Christi was down 4% over last year.