The Augusta Leading Economic Index (LEI) increased 1.9 percent in March from April. This is the highest monthly increase since August 2020, when we were coming out of the covid lockdown. The LEI is 1.4 percent higher than a year ago.
The big driver of this month’s data was residential building permits, which were 631 in March, the highest on record going back to 2000. 298 permits were for 1-unit structures, and 329 were for 5 units or more. Although there has been news of a cooling of the national housing market, this permits data suggests it is still strong in Augusta.
In other good news, the number of people filing initial claims for unemployment insurance fell in March to just 622. Inflation in the South Census region was just 1.9 percent on an annual basis.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended March at its lowest level of the year. The Bureau of Labor Statistics revised downwards job openings in Georgia and South Carolina by 30,000 and 9,000, respectively. Georgia posted an additional 5,000 jobs in March, but South Carolina continued to see fewer job openings by 3,000.
The labor market remains relatively strong, though. In March, Georgia firms hired 184,000 extra workers, and layoffs or discharges of workers were 48,000, and 109,000 quit their jobs. In South Carolina, there were 97,000 hires and 79,000 total separations.
