ld national slowdown in 2000, however, caused real whiplash locally. The last two years of available data show significant declines in jobs.
Bartholomew County’s manufacturing sector is big (more than 35 percent of all jobs in the county) but it reacts to national trends, too. One big influence is the level of vehicle sales. Figure 3 shows this relationship, once again showing percent changes. Sales of cars and light trucks in the United States exhibit wide swings in the annual percent change. But Bartholomew County’s manufacturing employment tracks these changes pretty closely. And the bad news is that vehicle sales are not likely to be as strong in 2006 as in some recent years. So local manufacturing employment probably will not rise much, either.
Bartholomew County Manufacturing Employment and U.S. Auto and
Light Truck Sales, 1990 to 2003
This historical sensitivity provides a way to think about Bartholomew County’s economic future. The forecast from Indiana University for the U.S. economy is cautiously optimistic. Assuming that interest rates and oil prices don’t climb more than expected, the U.S. GDP should expand at about the same rate as in 2005, or about 3.6 percent. That means the local construction industry should have a reasonably good year.
U.S. unemployment rates, however, are not forecast to improve much. So the unemployment rate in Bartholomew County probably will not get below 4 percent. The impressive numbers from the 1990s, when we saw unemployment rates here around 2 percent, just are not in the cards for next year.
Vehicle sales are a good indicator for the local manufacturing sector. And vehicle sales are not likely to improve much in the face of high fuel prices and rising interest rates in 2006.
Moves in the U.S. economy often translate into even bigger moves in the local economy. So watch the numbers for U.S. GDP, the national unemployment rate, and vehicle sales. If those numbers start to look better than expected next year, Bartholomew County could be very happy. But if the national situation turns out as forecasted, we’ll see little or no improvement in U.S. unemployment and vehicle sales. And that means 2006 is probably not going to show much new business or many new jobs in Columbus and Bartholomew County.
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