Leon County ER Index Improves Due To State Government Jobs

The Economic Recovery (ER) Index for September, 2010 was calculated to be 20.9. The Index is calculated by adding the monthly unemployment rate and the monthly supply of residential homes.  The ER Index was created by Tallahassee Reports.

This months’ ER Index is a modest improvement over the August, 2010 ER Index of 21.3 and better than one year ago when the ER Index for September was 21.4. However, this months Index still lags where the economy was in September, 2008, when the ER Index was 18.1.

The improvement of the index was fueled by a decrease in unemployment for Leon County. The unemployment rate improved from 8.7% to 8.2%. This is the second month in a row the unemployment rate has decreased.

There were a total of 2700 jobs added in the Tallahassee MSA during September. The government sector was responsible for the majority of this increase.

Based on information provided by the Agency for Workforce Innovation (AWI) , state government added approximately 2600 jobs. The private sector added 300 jobs during September.

The supply of homes continues to be a drag on the local economy. In September there was a 12.7 months supply of homes. This compares to 12.6 in August, 2010 and 11.9 in January of this year.

“There has not been much movement in the last six months. However, recently I have noticed an increase in activity. The question is will the activity result in closed transactions”, says Kitty Flynn, a local realtor with REMAX Gateway Executives.

Experts generally agree that the real estate market will only improve when the unemployment rate shows significant improvement.

The ER Index is updated monthly.