Retail sales for the Tri-Cities showed a mixture of slight gains and losses during the second quarter as the region poised to enter what one economist described as a slow and vulnerable economic recovery.
According to the Tri-Cities Retail Sales Report, businesses and merchants in the Twin City reported a combined $237.9 million worth of sales during the second quarter of 2010. That’s down 3.2 percent from what the two Bristols saw in the second quarter of 2009.
Johnson City’s retail sales for this year’s second quarter were up three-tenths of a percent from where they were in 2009, according to the report, while Kingsport’s were up 1.7 percent from last year. Sales for the entire region were up 3.9 percent from last year.
“In the region, the retail recovery remains fragile,” said Steb Hipple, an East Tennessee State University economics professor who publishes the report. “Most counties reported real improvements in retail performance while the major cities reported declines.”
Hipple, who also publishes a quarterly report studying the region’s labor market, said the actual pace of the economic recovery depends largely on consumer confidence and the country’s job market.
“The consensus is that consumers will gradually increase their spending in response to slow job growth and continued price stability,” Hipple said in his sales report.
But in the report, Hipple also warned that the national economic recovery is moving at a very slow pace. In the most optimistic projections, he said, the national economy will grow only by 3 percent to 4 percent a year, which is barely enough to reduce the country’s overall unemployment rate.
“Any higher growth would require another round of government fiscal stimulus, and that does not seem likely,” Hipple said in his report. Because the national economic recovery is moving at such a slow pace, he said, the region’s economic recovery will be equally as slow and so will any growth in its retail sales.
gmclean@bristolnews.com | (276) 645-2518
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