Brunswick County’s population continues to grow and its economy is booming, according to one of the region’s top economic experts.
Wilmington Regional Economist Muhsin Guettabi provided an economic overview at the Leland City Council’s November meeting. Guettabi, who is also an associate professor of economics at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, said migration to Brunswick County and the region is contributing to the local economy.
“One of the interesting things that everyone here knows is that this region has experienced an incredible amount of migration over the past few years,” Guettabi said.
From 2020 to 2022, Brunswick County grew at a rate of 12%. This is a faster pace than any other county in the state. While Pender and New Hanover counties are below that rate at 9% and 4%, respectively, Guettabi said the region as a whole is growing at an “incredible rate.”
study: Future development in a Brunswick city could effectively triple its population.
This growth and the resulting infusion of income has contributed significantly to the migration of residents from other counties in the state and the northeastern United States.
Guettabi said he calculated the total income of people who moved to the three-county area (Brunswick, New Hanover and Pender counties) and found that an estimated $1 billion in income was injected locally. Excluding income. Economy 2020-2021.
“This is a story of immigration,” Guettabi said. “…If we had taken migration out of the equation, Brunswick County, New Hanover and Pender would have actually shrunk.”
Deaths have outpaced births in the region in recent years, he said, and “without migration, the whole region would have actually shrunk.”
“Amazing” numbers
According to Internal Revenue Service data, millions of dollars are estimated to have been injected into the local economy between 2020 and 2021 as a direct result of this migration.
The largest numbers were still in Brunswick County, which saw a $548 million change in net income, the highest in the state. Neighboring New Hanover County experienced an additional $280 million in net income changes from immigration, and Pender County saw an additional $110 million increase.
labor market
Guettabi said employment in Brunswick County is also growing rapidly, with the private, federal, local and state sectors seeing “significant increases” since 2019. The county will have about 16% more wage and salary employment in 2023 than its peers, he said. It was in 2019.
He said the lodging and food service industry saw the biggest job growth, primarily in response to population growth. Average weekly wages have also increased in all four sectors since 2019, he said.
Guettabi said that although the labor market had “held up remarkably well” through the years of the pandemic, the region was likely to see its first decline in job growth since 2020 as the new year approaches.
What’s next?
A recession has been predicted for several years, but it did not materialize.
But Guettabi said that while the data may be foggy, it does suggest that consumer spending may be “running out of runway.” He said consumers primarily saved money during the pandemic, but that money is running out.
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He added that inflation and wages have both increased regionally in recent years, but both have slowed recently.
Guettabi said home prices remain at all-time highs in the Brunswick and New Hanover county housing markets. He said experts, both locally and nationally, are wondering who will blink first: buyers or sellers.
Jamie Cross covers Brunswick County for Star-News. Contact her at jbcross@gannett.com or message her on Twitter/X @jameybcross.