Economy – Page 5 – Croixstone

Charlotte Region By the Numbers

In June, the Charlotte Regional Partnership announced that it was launching a new quarterly economic activity report to capture an overarching look at capital investment, job growth and other important business data across the 16-county Charlotte region. We read the published report and learned that the vast majority of companies that located or expanded in the region are manufacturers. The report also reinforced that financial services is not the largest employer among the region’s industry sectors (it is healthcare by a large margin). Read the new report here.

July 2018 Workforce Report

LinkedIn publishes a monthly analysis of employment trends in the USA workforce. The report is divided into two sections: a National section that provides insights into hiring, skills gaps, and migration trends across the country, and a City section that provides insights into localized employment trends in 20 of the largest USA metro areas. In its newly-published July report, LinkedIn shared that Charlotte ranked among the top 10 cities in two different categories. Learn more here.

Expert Economy Growth

Croixstone’s business model is firmly founded in the “expert economy” as an “on demand” provider of highly-experienced, well educated consulting professionals. According to a recent article published by Forbes, the growing on-demand model offers many companies access to a diverse talent pool that doesn’t exist in-house and would never make sense to build. Read more here.

Industry Profile: Healthcare

Did you know that healthcare accounts for 1 in 10 jobs in the Charlotte region? That represents more than 137,000 diverse workers offering varied skill sets and education levels. And did you know that the Charlotte region has the largest concentration of medical device manufacturers in the Carolinas? With a total impact estimated at $13.4 billion, the healthcare sector has a significant, and rapidly-growing, impact on the Charlotte region’s economy. Learn more about our local healthcare sector via industry reports published by the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce and the Charlotte Regional Partnership.

Consulting Industry Outlook 2018

It’s a good time to be in the consulting world! According to the recently released Consulting Magazine’s 2018 Executive Outlook report, the theme for the consulting industry this year is “Let the Good Times Roll.”

The positive economic momentum + recent corporate tax cuts equal an “upbeat and bullish forecast” for the consulting industry. As result, the industry remains strong and firms are in the “midst of a hiring frenzy” to get the work done. Below is a high-level overview of the results in the report:

97% of leading consulting firms surveyed experienced real revenue growth over the last 12 months.
98% of executives are forecasting growth in 2018, and 94% are saying that growth will exceed 6%.
95% of firm leaders anticipate net profits will improve, and 62% of the firms predict net profits will be up more than 10% in 2018.

The survey was conducted in the latter part of 2017 with more than 130 Managing Directors, Partners and Vice Presidents participating. To read the full 2018 Executive Outlook, click here.

Pop-Up = Competitive Advantage

The concept of “pop-up” was once limited to the world of retail and public relations stunts. Fast forward to today, and you’ll find business innovators using pop-up strategies in fresh, new ways to gain a competitive advantage.

Most people think of “pop-up retailing” (also known as “flash retailing“) as shops, restaurants, collections of shops or events opening short-term in a temporary location. The concept, however, is now being utilized in other ways including as a business model for temporary, project-based companies and training/professional development organizations.

The New York Times recently ran a story about how “flash organizations” are forming to build products for the on-demand economy. Click here to learn more.

The Croixstone team loves SkillPop, a local organization providing pop-up training and professional development.

For WSJ subscribers, learn how consumer brands create buzz by setting up NYC pop up stores here.

What is the State of NC’s Economy?

So what is the state of North Carolina’s economy?

A “mixed bag” according to a recently published story in The News & Observer (Raleigh) in conjunction with The Charlotte Observer and McClatchy. The media organizations assessed the state of North Carolina with a focus on 20 measures of how the state is doing compared with previous years and compared with Georgia, Virginia and the rest of the nation.

Key findings:

NC has been adding jobs at a pace of about 7,000 a month over the past few years.
The state had above-average job growth from July 2015 to July 2016.
NC’s economy performs similarly to Georgia’s and worse than Virginia’s.
Wages are back to pre-recession levels, but people are also more likely to be in poverty.
Employment in NC is better than average — but only if people who have given up on job hunts aren’t counted. A smaller share of North Carolina adults are in the labor force than Americans as a whole.
For each of the last 20 months, companies in both North and South Carolina have reported being unable to fill open jobs.
At 4.6 percent, the state’s unemployment rate is better than the national average. The state has 290,000 more jobs than it did in 2007.

Read the full article here.

1 2 3 45