Great news is emerging about the resiliency and long term economic forecast for Bryan-College Station. According to KBTX, one of the state’s experts on the economy says Bryan/College Station has weathered the economic storm, and is set to see significant growth in the next few years.
Economist Ray Perryman presented his annual report Tuesday afternoon in Bryan. He told area government and business leaders that income levels and housing markets have held up in the recession, and that the economy here and across the country should pick up in the next six to nine months.
“One of the primary reasons is, for the first time in the history of this country — we’ve never seen anything like this — we have $2 trillion of corporate money, cash, on the sidelines because they’re not ready to make the investment to hire the people, that sort of thing,” Perryman said. “Once that money comes back into the economy, that brings a tremendous energy to the economy, something we haven’t seen in a while.”
Perryman predicts the population here will pick up as well. In all, Perryman believes nearly 20,000 more people will be living in the Twin Cities area by 2015. That’s an annual growth of about 1.8 percent. Nearly 11,000 workers are projected to be added in the next five years.
“Certainly, population growth — both the natural growth where we have a younger population in this area so there’s more births than deaths, and the migration of people coming into the area from other parts of the state and other parts of the country — those things combine to give you an underlying population growth, which then gives you the capacity to grow your retail base and things of that nature,” Perryman said.
Perryman also projects that of all the job sectors, government will provide the most overall output in 2015, make up the most employment, and create the second-most new jobs behind only service industries. That’s despite Texas heading into the coming years with a deficit, and legislators vowing to reduce the size of government.
“We need more roads. We need more schools. We need more infrastructure, and all those things are provided, by in large, by government,” Perryman said. “Even though you may slow the rate of growth in government, even though you may do some things — and fiscally, you’re going to have to do some things in the near future — the bottom line is there are some key public services that have to be addressed.”
Perryman estimates more than 5,000 service industry jobs will be added in the Twin Cities in the next five years. That includes healthcare, business services and tourism, among other things.
Government jobs could grow by 2,550 jobs, trade is shown to be rising by 1,300 jobs, and the construction industry could gain by 750 jobs, according to Perryman.
The Waco-based economist forecasts for all the metro areas in Texas, and has been projecting for Bryan/College Station since 1982.
View the complete report: ray perryman bcs economic forecast 2010