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Greater Seattle Productivity Leads Nation
The Seattle area’s gross metropolitan product rose 0.6 percent from the fourth quarter of 2008 to the first quarter of 2009, which is the highest gain in the nation, according to a new study.
According to the Brookings Institution’s “MetroMonitor,” which tracks economic recession and recovery in the nation’s 100 largest metro areas, the total value of goods and services produced in Seattle in the last quarter rose more than any other market in the U.S. except for the Austin, Texas area, which also registered a 0.6 percent increase for the same period.
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200 jobs were filled at a jobs fair at Safeco Field.
USA Today reports that the recovery will begin in September.
Small businesses report they are growing to take prepare for the recovery.
Pending home sales in King County rose 27% in Greater Seattle
Moody’s announces Greater Seattle will be a leader in the recovery
Wal-Mart will add 20,000 jobs in 2009.
International Lease Finance, Boeing’s biggest customer, will boost its orders by 30%.
Car sales climbed 11% in April
Manufacturing orders are up for May.
Existing home sales jumped 7% in April
Nordstrom is hiring 50 local people for sales, chefs, and management positions.
Nations economists reporting the recession to be over in 09 Q3.
Dozens of positions were filled at the Spring Sound Diversity Job Fair in Tacoma.
Uwajimaya to hire 10-20 managers and staff for local positions.
Movie industry reports ticket sales up 2% nationally.
Mutual of Omaha is hiring 10 for Greater Seattle positions.
Sprint is hiring store managers and staff for Greater Seattle.
Greater Seattle ranks third on recent Forbes list of Most Desirable Places TO Live.
Verizon hired over 200 for their Bellevue offices this week.
Puget Sound Energy announces openings for engineers, IT and dispatch personnel.
Boeing announces a new $400 million military contract for two C-17s.
The head of the Federal Reserve says the recovery should officially begin in 09 Q3.
The Edgewater Hotel is hiring managers, cooks, retail and other workers.
Mortgage applications are way up.
Pending home sales in Greater Seattle jumped 25% in April.
Dozens of accounting and customer service jobs were filled at the recent Seattle Center jobs fair.
Boeing closed a deal to sell eight 777s to Turkish Airlines.
Construction spending grew .3% in March.
Dozens of positions were filled at the Maritime Jobs Fair.
Nintendo profits rose 8.5% last year.
Bellevue based Expedia Corp reports higher than expected earnings.
Jiffy Lube is hiring dozens of managers and trainees in Greater Seattle.
Amazon.com continues to grow by buying out LexCycle of Portland.
Swedish Medical Center is hiring PTs and nurses.
Costco is giving shareholders a larger than expected dividend.
Consumer spending jumped 2% in 09 Q1.
Amazon.com reports that profits are up 34% in 09 Q1.
The USA still leads the world in the manufacturing economy.
Amazon.com will lease 11 buildings south of Lake Union.
Verizon will add 250 new jobs in Bellevue
Computer sales were up in 08 Q4.
Kirkland’s Monolith Software announces jobs openings.
Unemployment applications continue to plunge.
Safeway announces jobs postings for checkers, stockers, bakers, and meat wrappers.
Areospace and Healthcare in Greater Seattle are poised to explode.
The Port of Seattle will grow CMA CGA shipping will start shipping here beginning this summer.
Boeing sold another eight 787 Dreamliners to Bahrain.
Wells Fargo Bank looks to post a profit of $3 billion for 08 Q4.
Numbers filing for unemployment plunged this week.
The FAA posts dozens of jobs - technical writers, safety inspectors, and controllers.
Stocks reached their highest point in 2 months.
National retailers posted higher than expected sales numbers in March.
Nation Tourism industry saw a record amount of business last year, 50 million visitors.
Factory Orders jumped 1.2% in March.
Local company the Vitamin Shoppe grew 20% over the last 6 months.
Mortgage rates dip to 4%.
Greater Seattle Pending Home Sales jumped 33% from February to March.
Washington employment is 92%.
Three thousand jobs for Greater Seattle are listed on NWJobs.com.
Home prices are holding steady.
Amazon.com posted 60 new job openings for engineers, paralegals, and systems managers.
Ski Areas had their best season in 15 years.
AmeriCorps set to hire 2,500 in Washington State.
Gallup’s Consumer Mood Index jumped another 10 points.
Bellevue based Intellius is hiring engineers, customer support, sales and marketing personnel.
National employment rate is 92%
Boeing airplane deliveries are up more than 5% over last year.
Consumer spending climbed 2/10s of a percent in March.
Home mortgage interest rates continue at historic lows.
Community Banks are growing stronger. Deposits are up and they’re expanding.
There are 77,000 more high tech jobs this year over last
Gallup poll - people who think the economy is improving is at the highest level in two years.
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In a recent article by Bill Dedman, Investigative Reporter from Moody'sEconomy.com Washington will lead the nation in the recovery.
We excerpt it here. The full article may be foundhere
Dedman says . . .
If you want to be in the right place when the recovery starts, that place may be in Colorado, Idaho, Oregon, Texas or Washington.
The recession didn't start at the same time in every state, and it won't end at the same time either. A new forecast from Moody's Economy.com predicts that jobs growth will return first in those five states, starting in the last quarter of this year. Four of those states benefit from strong high-tech industries, and the fifth, Texas, has a strong base of energy industries.
Why will some states recover faster than others?
High-tech industry is one element. A slowdown in technology spending in 2008 and 2009 has created a pent-up demand for technology — businesses that know they need to upgrade and are waiting for the ability to spend.
"States that have a high concentration in tech-related industries are well positioned to take advantage of this trend, which is particularly true of Colorado, Idaho, Oregon and Washington and to a lesser extent Texas," said economist Andrew Gledhill of Moody's Economy.com.
Why is Texas, which has less high-tech industry, on the list for early job growth?
"The state had largely missed out on the housing boom (as did Colorado) and was among the last to join the recession, in large part due to lingering impacts from the energy boom of years past," Gledhill said.
"Similarly, other expected early risers such as Washington and Colorado were also relatively late to join the recession for various reasons. Thus, as conditions begin to turn nationally, they have less of a hole to dig themselves out of."
The Greater Seattle Economy has specific advantages that have allowed it to avoid the worst of the national recession. Michael Parks reported in late 2008 in his Marples Pacific Northwest Letter that it was because of six factors:
Construction is continuing (tower cranes can be seen all over Seattle & Bellevue)
Boeing & Areospace continue to be strong (Boeing's 787 is sold out through 2012)
Microsoft and High Tech continue to be strong (Microsoft has cash liquidity of $28 billion)
Corporate Expansion (Server Farms continue to be built)
New Technology Companies continue to relocate here
Bustling Ports (A weak dollar increases exports; a strong dollar imports)
Perhaps the nation will begin to recover in September as an IHS Global Insight report stated. Perhaps in October as Dedman suggests. But the best news is that it's coming.
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Washington Square Condominiums redefine urban living in downtown Bellevue. See how by clickinghere
Bellevue has a greater percentage and larger number of highly affluent than does Beverly Hills according to a recent article in the Puget Sound Business Journal.
Jeanne Lang Jones, Staff Writer, Puget Sound Business Journal, reports, (Exerpt)
By at least one measure, Beverly Hills’ famous Rodeo Drive has got nothing on downtown Bellevue.
Drawing 10-mile rings around the two shopping zones, a retail consulting firm found a larger pool of affluent consumers around Bellevue than Beverly Hills.
The data were compiled for the Puget Sound Business Journal by the Redlands, Calif.-based ESRI Business Solutions, and bolster some experts’ belief that the Seattle area is developing the wealth and fashion sense to support a larger armada of luxury retailers.
“It’s been the most dramatic over the last three to four years,” said Wayne Hussey, a Neiman Marcus executive who helped pick Bellevue for the high-end chain’s first Northwest store, which opens in September.
While the recession has cast a pall over high-end shopping, the long-term trend for the Seattle-Bellevue area, some say, is toward a growing cohort of prosperous, aging professionals primed to embrace a more formal lifestyle — for example, buying splashy clothes for charity events.
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Barbara Corcoran, realestate commentator on NBC's Today Show, Places Greater Seattle high on the list of cities to lead the nation in the coming recovery.
Said Corcoran, "The Seattle base is filled with potential business and existing business. You also have a tremendously educated population"
Of all major market in the nation, she places Seattle fourth best poised for a housing recovery.
Job growth potential, a growing population, good weather, many first-time buyers, no condo or office overbuilding, a vital downtown, a well-educated population and a large number of foreclosures early in the downturn were among the reasons she cited.
Denver was the top city poised to recover, she stated, followed by Raleigh, N.C., Austin, Texas, Seattle and San Francisco.
This belief was confirmed by Ron Sparks VP of Coldwell Banker Bain who said, "The Today Show segment is another reminder of the underlying strength of the Greater Seattle market," Sparks said. "While immediate challenges certainly remain, I strongly believe there is significant long-term upside to our housing market, and it's great to see that vision objectively validated by others."
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Top executives at Boeing, the USA's largest exporter by value of goods sold abroad have announced only 4,500 job cuts so far — far fewer than the roughly 30,000 laid off after the downturn in travel following the Sept. 11 terror attacks. And none of the cuts are on the assembly line.
Two things will keep production humming for years: a staggering $270 billion backlog of orders; and the 30-year trend of growing demand for air travel.
At current production rates, it will take seven to eight years for Boeing to deliver the nearly 3,700 jetliners on backlog, says Randy Tinseth, the company's marketing vice president.
"We've clearly got a much larger backlog than we've ever had in previous cycles," Tinseth says. "That gives us flexibility as we go through this downturn."
Scott Carson, CEO of the commercial airplanes division, told investors at the JPMorgan Chase conference in New York earlier this month that over the next 20 years the market "is a rich opportunity for us," whether the ultimate demand for commercial jets is 29,000 planes, as Boeing projects, or just 27,000 if cancellations continue.
"We're playing from a position of strength," he said.
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The recession may be nearly over. A USA Today economic analysis predicts it will end in September.
We’re spending more, which is an encouraging sign. Retail sales just jumped by the biggest amount in four months.
The job market is also looking better. Layoffs dropped sharply last week.
There are signs the housing market is improving. Nationally, foreclosures dropped 6 percent last month.
If you’re in the market for a home, good news, prices are down a bit.
Fewer businesses in our state are filing for bankruptcy, another sign the economy is improving.
The job market looks better. A quarter of manufacturing companies and nearly half of service companies plan to hire this month.
The national employment rate remains above 90 percent.
We’re doing a lot of work around the house. Home Depot is boosting its profit forecasts.
If you want to get rid of your old gas guzzler, Congress is talking about giving $4,500 dollar credits toward new cars.
Great news for Boeing: International Lease Finance, its biggest customer, could boost its orders by 30 percent over the next year.
Wal-Mart is growing rapidly, and says it will create more than 20-thousand jobs this year.
Starbucks got the highest score in the new Zagat survey.
Five of the country’s best high schools are located in the Bellevue School District, according to US News and World Report.
Boeing completed another round of tests on its 787 Dreamliner and says the plane will fly by the end of the month.
Pierce County is talking about borrowing money so it can fix up roads even before the economy recovers.
Forgiving people prevents heartache – literally. The Mayo Clinic says it reduces heart disease.
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