Reports published by the Gazette during the last week paint a generally healthy picture of the area economy whose stability should be reassuring to business owners, residents and officials alike.
Experts say that the low unemployment rate, a spillover of development from eastern to western Massachusetts and major construction in the region’s dominant cities, including Springfield and Northampton, are all positive signs. And while the Pioneer Valley still does not have a major industry driving the economy, its bedrock employers — higher education, health care, technology and government — provide a broad and solid base.
“Right now it’s fairly steady, we have a fairly strong economy at the moment,” Geoff Kravitz, the economic development director for Amherst, told the Gazette in the first of its four Monday Business sections assessing the area economic outlook for 2017.
There are concerns, however, including whether there will be sufficient replacements for an aging workforce nearing retirement age, the need for more affordable housing and matching training with available jobs, especially those requiring specialized skills.
Timothy Brennan, executive director of the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, says that attracting and retaining workers for good jobs, including high-level machinists, business professionals and teachers, remains challenging.
That is particularly true as the unemployment rate continues to fall. In December, it was 3.4 percent in the Springfield metropolitan area, down from 5.3 percent last July. Statewide, the December unemployment rate was at a 16-year-low of 2.8 percent.
“For the past six months, unemployment has continued to drop, and the labor force participation rate has held steady over the year, which is very good news for the state,” Labor and Workforce Development Secretary Ronald L. Walker II said in January.
Patricia Crosby, executive director of the Franklin-Hampshire Regional Employment Board, says people looking for jobs here should consider health care — where there are opportunities for certified nursing aides and medical assistants — and agriculture, long a foundation of the area’s economy. “Agriculture is thriving in the Pioneer Valley,” she says. “It goes from jobs in the field to the staffing of farm stores.”
Meanwhile, Northampton Mayor David J. Narkewicz released a report Friday analyzing the city’s downtown economic indicators. “I think Northampton is still in high demand. It’s an attractive place, people want to be here, invest here and open a business here,” Narkewicz says.
There are 14 vacant storefronts in the downtown area between King and Pleasant streets and bounded by Market and Hawley streets at its eastern end and Smith College to the west. They represent 6.4 percent of the available buildings with street-level access and all the shops inside Thornes Marketplace. Despite talk in some quarters of an abundance of empty storefronts, that rate is a modest improvement on the 7 percent vacancy rate at the end of 2015.
Seven commercial properties downtown changed hands during 2016, more than the previous three years combined. And just one of those 2016 sales — 32 Market St., where Western Village Ski & Sports was replaced by Theory Skateshop — came at less than the property’s assessed value.
Food and beverage establishments continue to provide the linchpin of Northampton’s downtown economy, with 65 businesses, or 30 percent of the total. Meals tax revenue in Northampton, which is calculated citywide, was up 1 percent in 2016, to $709,901. That reflects total spending on meals in Northampton of about $94.6 million during 2016, according to the mayor’s office.
While Northampton saw several longtime merchants close in 2016 — including Western Village, Don Gleason’s Camping Supply, The Mercantile gift shop, and Zen restaurant — most of those storefronts were quickly filled with new or relocated businesses.
And in some cases, the owners of established stores who retired sold their businesses to employees, ensuring continuity through a younger generation of retail leaders. Among those are Donna McNeight, who with Amy Dickinson purchased Gazebo in March from Judith Fine, who had owned the bra shop for 38 years. McNeight is bullish about the business environment in Northampton: “The new owners are pumped up and ready to go, the timing is wonderful. It couldn’t be better.”
We share her enthusiasm for an economy in Northampton and the Valley that continues its upward trajectory since the Great Recession ended nearly eight years ago.