Economic report from Johnson Price Sprinkle PA:
Johnson Price Sprinkle PA (JPS) provides Asheville Metro Economic Report 2016 Fourth Quarter. JPS has offices in Asheville, Boone and Marion, NC, and provides small to middle market businesses with tax, consulting and audit services.
Highlights:
• The fourth quarter saw the continued setting of new all-time records in the four-county Asheville metro (Buncombe, Haywood, Henderson and Madison counties). Total employment, hotel/motel sales, average hotel room rates, private industry average hourly earnings and taxable retail sales are a few key economic indicators which reached new all-time heights in the quarter.
• Asheville area metro added an average of 5,400 net new jobs from a year earlier, earning an average growth rate of 2.9 percent. Monthly year-to-year job growth has continued uninterrupted for six and one-half years.
• Asheville metro’s employment growth rate over the fourth quarter places it third among the state’s 15 metros. The rate is above both the national and statewide rates of growth.
• Averaging 3.9 percent over the fourth quarter, Asheville metro’s unemployment rate continues to hold well below both the state and nation. The metro has held the lowest unemployment rate in the state for the last twenty-one consecutive months.
• Positive net job creation was experienced in all eleven major industry sectors in the area’s metro. The top two gainers each broke all-time fourth quarter employment totals. The Leisure & Hospitality Services sector added 1,200 jobs over the year, up 4.4 percent to a total of 27,800. While the Health Services sector added 1,100 jobs, reaching a new peak employment total of 37,200.
• Private industry average hourly earnings in Asheville’s metro equaled $22.87 in the fourth quarter, an increase of 7.9 percent from a year earlier and the largest percentage increase in over two years. The fourth quarter hourly earnings place it fourth among all fifteen metros in the state.
• Total Passenger Traffic at the Asheville Regional Airport equaled 225,392 in the fourth quarter of 2016; up 15.7 percent from a year earlier, equaling the strongest percentage increase in three years.
• Existing homes sold in the fourth quarter totaled 1,034, while the average sales price equaled $318,939. The number of homes sold is 17 percent lower than one-year earlier, while over the same period the average sales price gained 15 percent.
• Taxable retail sales collections in Asheville totaled $1.9 billion in the fourth quarter; 10.1 percent above collections for the same period one-year earlier. The total sets a new all-time record for retail sales collections in the metro.
More detailed report information is available on the Johnson Price Sprinkle website.
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