The Charlotte region and the national economies are looking up but only marginally.
Those are the words from the speakers at the State of the Region Summit, held today in Concord.
Kaglic, a specialist on regional and urban economies, expects the national economic growth estimate for 2012’s third quarter will be revised upward to about 3 percent from the current 2 percent. The bright spots are personal consumption and residential investment, he says.
Still the nation hasn’t set a path for continued expansion, Kaglic says. The Great Recession took 8.8 million jobs out of the economy and only 4.5 million have been replaced. The Charlotte regional economy has managed to replace only 130,000 of the 330,000 jobs lost to the recession, he says.
The region’s reliance on manufacturing and construction meant that up to 45 percent of those jobs lost came from those sectors, Kaglic says.
Still the local region is dependent on the national economy, he says.
“It’s very difficult for a region to pull itself up in absence of a national recovery,” Kaglic says.
Phil Dubois, UNC Charlotte chancellor, says the university is growing in some ways despite the poor economy and in other ways due to the delayed recovery. He says some of the growth in enrollment comes from out-of-state students coming to North Carolina where tuition increases haven’t been as large as in other states.
Dubois appeared in Concord as a part of a UNC Charlotte outreach as the university tries to stay in touch with its 100,000 alumni.