By Carla Branch
alexandrianews.org
Dr. Stephen Fuller (Courtesy Photo)
The U. S. is in the fifth quarter of an economic recovery, and Northern Virginia is doing better than most other regions of the country. Dr. Stephen Fuller, director of George Mason University’s Center for Regional Analysis, looked at the region’s recovery now and in the future.
ACT for Alexandria, the Alexandria Chamber of Commerce and the Alexandria Economic Development Partnership sponsored Fuller’s presentation, which was attended by Alexandria’s business and political leaders. “The recession began in December, 2007, and ended in June, 2009, so the recession has been over for five quarters. That’s not to say there couldn’t be another recession, but when people start talking about a double dip recession, that is just not theoretically possible,” Fuller said. “A double dip recession is one that occurs within six months of the beginning of the recovery.”
Between December, 2007, and December, 2009, the U. S. lost nearly 8.4 million jobs. “Some of those jobs aren’t coming back,” Fuller said. “We are adding jobs, but we continue to lose them as well. And people continue to apply for unemployment. The good news is that we are losing jobs at a slower rate now than we were during the recession. We won’t get back to where we were before the recession until at least 2015.”
The only sectors that never lost jobs were education and health services. They have added more than one million jobs since December, 2007.
”Baby Boomers, who are between 46 and 64, need health services, and the Millennials are entering school. I tell all of my architect friends to design hospitals or schools, and they will be guaranteed full employment,” Fuller said.
More than two million manufacturing jobs were lost between December, 2007, and December, 2009. “We are regaining some of those manufacturing jobs very slowly. The good news for Alexandria is the Eisenhower Valley, which is zoned for manufacturing enterprises such as Virginia paving,” Fuller said.
The unemployment rate nationally is still nearly ten percent, while locally it is just over five percent. “In Northern Virginia, we are going to add more jobs than we have people to fill them,” Fuller said. “Local governments want jobs but don’t want to build homes for more people.”
As for the housing market, “residential property values in Northern Virginia never dropped as much as they did in most of the rest of the country. We are seeing a slow recovery in the residential market, and the commercial market will lag behind that,” Fuller said.
Northern Virginia’s economy will continue to be strong. “Growth will just be slower than we would like,” Fuller said.