From the Editor: GDP stats offer good news for local economy

If you have any doubts about how hard slumping oil prices have hit St. Mary Parish, new federal estimates should clear things up.
The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis recently released its annual four-year report on county-by-county gross domestic product. The numbers cover the years 2015-18.
Even if you thought the situation was bad, it was probably worse at the beginning of that period than you thought. But recent economic performance shines like the first beam of sunlight at dawn.
It’s probably better than you imagined.
For anyone who hasn’t been bored by a professional economist, gross domestic product is the total value of the goods and services produced in a given area in a given period of time. It’s usually referred to as GDP.
Sometime in the last 40 years, “gross national product” became “gross domestic product,” probably as the result of blue-ribbon commissions, dozens of reports and millions of dollars.
Anyway, when people talk about growth or contraction in the U.S. economy, the Louisiana economy or St. Mary’s economy, GDP is usually what they’re talking about.
Here’s what those Bureau of Economic Analysis numbers tell us:
—2015 was the first full year after oil prices began to plummet from a peak of about $107 per barrel to less than $40 in 19 months. Like a spouse with a wandering eye, the energy industry had taken its offshore soul mate for granted and succumbed to the flirtatious appeal of fracking in inland shale deposits.
St. Mary’s economy showed the results. In 2015, our parish generated about $2.8 billion in goods and services, according to the bureau. In 2016, St. Mary’s GDP fell to $2.5 billion, a drop of 10.5%.
We weren’t alone. Other parishes in south Louisiana, where offshore work is economically important, saw big declines: 14.4% in St. James, 11.7% in Lafourche, 11.1% in Iberia, 10.6% in Plaquemines, 9.7% in Terrebonne, 7.7% in Lafayette, 7.5% in Assumption, and 5.4% in St. Martin.
For context, compare that to the drop in U.S. GDP during the worst recession in the memory of all but our oldest neighbors. In 2009, when toxic mortgages threatened to choke world credit markets, and U.S. unemployment rose to 9.9%, the nation’s GDP fell 2.5%.
—In 2017, St. Mary’s economy shrank again, but less drastically this time. GDP stood at $2.41 billion, down 4%.
—Then, in 2018, the economy grew.
GDP hit $2.48 billion, an increase of 2.9%. That was good enough to make us the 20th largest economy among Louisiana’s 64 parishes. We ranked 22nd in 2015.
Not even the feds can keep track of every nickel we spend on groceries or getting the house painted, so the statistics are based on surveys. And surveys tend to grow less accurate as the number of businesses surveyed gets smaller.
But you take your sunshine where you find it.
Likewise, employment in St. Mary is showing signs of renewed life.
At its peak here in September 2014, just before the oil price slide, 27,374 people had nonfarm jobs, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. By July 2017, that was down to 20,955.
By June 2019, the number was up to 21,559. Economists often say employment is a lagging indicator, one that is among the last signs of an economic recovery.
Also:
—Employment in the broad category that includes oil and gas extraction grew from 1,779 in 2017 to 1,842 in June 2018. It peaked at about 2,600 in 2013.
—Support activities for mining, a category that includes oil and gas-related work, slipped a little in 2018 to 1,511 from 1,570 a year earlier.
Employment there topped out at about 2,300 in 2013.
—The number of people employed in shipbuilding hit 982 in 2018, up from 965 a year earlier. The peak was 1,608 in 2014.
—Retail trade employment was down a bit in 2018. Employment there stood at 2,077, down from 2,116. The peak was 2,434 in 2015.
We’ll have to wait until Uncle Santa comes through with a new four-year report that will include 2019.
Bill Decker is managing editor of The Daily Review.