Muncie forecast 2013.

• Author: Faulk, Dagney

The official numbers show noticeable improvements in the Muncie area economy during 2012. The unemployment rate is down. Nonfarm employment has increased by a respectable amount as have average weekly wages. The housing market, particularly real estate sales, has improved, and local real estate agents indicate that there are shortages in some segments of the market. There have not been any major announcements of new businesses locating in the area or closings of existing manufacturing facilities, but several of the area's major manufacturers are humming along.

This article includes the most current data available at the time of writing on various measures of economic activity from public sources for the Muncie metropolitan area (Delaware County) to analyze changes over the past year. A summary of the labor market forecast for the Muncie area is included in the conclusion.

Labor Markets

The unemployment rate in 2012 showed very healthy improvement, decreasing from 10 percent to 8.8 percent from January to September (see Table 1). This is also lower than one year ago (September 2011) when the unemployment rate was 9.9 percent. However, Delaware County's rate is still higher than Indiana's rate of 7.5 percent (not seasonally adjusted). In 2012, we have a different scenario than 2011 with the changes in the number of unemployed workers and the labor force. In 2011, the number of unemployed workers decreased at a faster rate (down 7.1 percent) than the increase in the labor force (up 2.0 percent). However, from January to September in 2012, the labor force had a slight reduction of 0.8 percent and the number of unemployed persons also decreased but at a higher rate of 12.6 percent. This is similar to Indiana as a whole where there was a slight reduction in the labor force in 2012 (-0.3 percent) and a larger decrease in the number of unemployed workers (-18.7 percent).

TABLE 1: Labor Force and Unemployment, Delaware County, September 2011 to September 2012 Year Month Labor Force Unemployed Unemployment Rate September 54,531 5,398 9.9% October 54,456 5,322 9.8% 2011 November 54,790 5,513 10.1% December 54,398 5,334 9.8% Annual 53,755 5,458 10.2% January 54,419 5,429 10.0% February 54,374 5,375 9.9% March 54,679 5,373 9.8% April 53,581 4,776 8.9% 2012 May 54,806 4,922 9.0% June 52,968 5,384 10.2% July 52,664 5,261 10.0% August 53,486 5,021 9.4% September 54,009 4,744 8.8% Note: Data are not seasonally adjusted. Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics...