Savannah Chamber

41 Sustained increases in home prices will support the growth of consumer spending, especially spending on home improvements. In addition, home price increases will boost small business activity in Gainesville. That is because business expansion and formation requires cash and the typical entrepreneur gets the funds needed to start, or expand, their business by borrowing, using their home as collateral. Home equity will be much more available to finance such loans in 2020. Small business will contribute to Gainesville's growth in 2020. Compared to both the state and the nation, the economic structure of Gainesville is very heavily tilted towards manufacturing, which makes the area much more cyclical that either the state or the national economy. At this late stage of the current business cycle, expansions by existing manufacturers and the recruitment of new manufacturers will slow. Manufacturing will continue to support job growth, but the push to growth will be much weaker than it was earlier in this business cycle. Another reason job growth will slow is that workers are increasingly scarce. Gainesville's unemployment rate is the lowest among the state's metropolitan areas. In many ways that is a great problem to have, but it is getting more difficult to fill open positions. That scarcity of workers will slow the expansion of existing firms and makes it harder to attract new companies. Fortunately, Gainesville's location allows employers to tap into Atlanta's vast labor pool. In addition, as just discussed, the area is an education hub for North Georgia. Gainesville therefore attracts and nourishes young adults who are looking to raise their levels of educational attainment, many of which will choose to work in the area after graduation. Although the outlook for Gainesville is sanguine, there are two policy-related area-specific worries. A trade war or a pullback from globalization could be very tough on Gainesville because of the area's dependence on international trade. Exports account for 7.8 percent of Gainesville-Hall County's GDP. The main exports are machinery and food products (e.g., poultry). The renegotiation of NAFTA therefore substantially reduced a downside risk for the area, but the ongoing trade war with China reduces prospects for Gainesville-Hall County. A second concern is that the stricter U.S. immigration laws – or stricter enforcement of existing laws – will hit Gainesville much harder than the nation as a whole. That is because unauthorized immigrants account for 10.1 percent of Gainesville's population – compared to only 3.5 percent of the U.S. population. In addition, the timing of the crackdown on illegal immigration is particularly bad given the area's very low unemployment rate. Macon Macon's total employment will increase by 0.2 percent in 2020. Although overall employment will not expand very much in 2020, healthcare, hospitality, and construction will add jobs, but job losses in retailing, manufacturing, information, financial activities, and government will offset those gains. Economic development projects announced over the last two years will continue to build out in terms of their employment impacts on the MSA. Irving Tissue will expand, creating adding 150 jobs. Dean Baldwin Painting will build a new, four bay service hangar at the Middle Georgia Regional Airport, creating 115 new jobs. In 2018, Stevens Aerospace and Defense Systems announced that it will open a large-cabin aircraft operations facility at the Middle Georgia Regional Airport that will eventually create 150 jobs – mainly in aerospace maintenance. Middle Georgia State University and Central Georgia Technical College train students in aerospace maintenance and were likely important factors behind the company's decision to invest in Macon. Five Below recently built a new retail distribution center project in Monroe County, which began hiring in 2019. The Five Below distribution center will employ about 130 workers. The Nichiha Group announced an expansion of its fiber cement product manufacturing plant that will add over 70 jobs. The top employers in the Macon MSA are GEICO, Navicent Health Medical Center, Coliseum Health Systems, Mercer University, and Georgia Farm Bureau Federation. GEICO, the MSA's largest employer, recently expanded its operations. In 2020, GEICO should benefit from increases in insured amounts stemming from (1) consumers preferences for more expensive vehicle models and from (2) increases in residential property values. An expected decline in vehicle sales is a negative for GEICO, however. The Macon MSA includes Bibb, Crawford, Jones, Monroe, and Twiggs counties.

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