Richmond forecast 2023.

• Author: Cheung, Oi Lin

Richmond, the seat of Wayne County, is located on the eastern border of Indiana. Throughout this article, the Richmond region refers to seven east-central Indiana counties: Fayette, Franklin, Henry, Randolph, Rush, Union and Wayne.

As of 2022 Q1, the largest industry sectors in the Richmond region are manufacturing (13,218 jobs); retail trade (7,770 jobs); health care and social services (7,747 jobs); and accommodation and food services (5,365 jobs) (see Table 1).

According to 2020 U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis data, (1) Wayne County had the largest population and earned the highest total income in the region: approximately 32% of both the region's total income ($9.47 billion) and total population (207,423 people). Wayne County was followed by Henry County, which earned 22% of the region's total income and had 23% of the region's total population.

Wayne County's per capita personal income (PCPI) was $45,499, a growth of 7.3% from 2019. This was 88% of Indiana's PCPI ($51,926) and 76% of U.S. PCPI ($59,510). Franklin County ($51,316) and Rush County ($49,889) had the highest PCPI values in the region. In fact, Wayne County experienced the least PCPI growth in 2020, up 7.3% from 2019, whereas Randolph County experienced the most growth with 12.6%, followed by Union County at 10.1% growth.

In this article, we will discuss the recent performance of key components of the regional economy, as well as Richmond's 2023 economic outlook.

Labor market

Wayne County's labor force was made up of 30,025 people in August 2022, representing 31.1% of the region's total labor force (96,457 people). The county had a January-August monthly labor force of 29,521 people in 2022, down 0.36% (or 107 people) from 2021. While Franklin County (11,426 people), Henry County (22,332 people) and Randolph County (11,797 people) also maintained labor forces over 10,000 people in August 2022, the remaining counties in the region had much smaller labor forces. Between 2021 and 2022, Randolph County (+3.95%) saw the greatest growth in January-August monthly labor force, while Fayette County (-2.11%) recorded the greatest decline. The monthly labor force average for the entire region was 95,570 people, up 0.59% or 561 people from 2021 (see Figure 1).

Over the first eight months of 2022, Fayette County had the highest monthly unemployment rate at 4%, while all the other counties in the region experienced unemployment rates both below 2.9% and below the same time period last year. While Wayne County recovered the most in the region from an unemployment rate perspective (down nearly 1.3 percentage points from 4.2% in 2021), Union County experienced the least improvement (down 0.6 percentage points from its already low monthly average of 2.8% in 2021). The overall January-August monthly unemployment rate for the region was about the same as Indiana at 2.8%, but compared favorably with that of the U.S. (3.8%). (2)

Jobs and wages

The region added 1,765 new jobs to the private sector in Q1 of 2022 (see Table 1), with the...