Econowatch

Economic DEvElopmEnt corporation

26455 Rockwell Canyon Road | UCEN 263 | Santa Clarita, CA 91355 | (661) 288-4400 | www.scvedc.org

A Recap of the 2022 Economic Outlook Conference

BY HOLLY SCHROEDER

President and CEO of the Santa Clarita Valley Economic Development Corp.

Designed to provide attendees with an economic analysis and outlook for the coming year, the 2022 Economic Outlook Conference included global, national, and state perspectives, while focusing primarily on the trends and issues associated with the Santa Clarita Valley and the surrounding business community. Hundreds of attendees listened in on updates to important topics such as demographics, employment, residential and commercial real estate trends, new developments, and quality of life. Over the last 9 years the SCV has seen tremendous growth and economic success:

Our population has grown by 7.5% because we built over 6000 new homes (277451–> 298,731)

Meanwhile, our jobs base has grown by 13.5%. We built millions of square feet of new industrial, commercial, and retail space.

We have nearly recovered all the jobs lost during the pandemic and our job creation rate is increasing. (83.0 –> 94.2)

Total personal income has grown by roughly 50% (18.3B –> 27.6B)

The unemployment rate dropped from 9.0 to its current level of 4.1

Considering there was a global pandemic, these numbers are pretty good! Take note from those numbers that the rate of job growth exceeded the rate of population growth.

The event kicked off with a panel discussion with prominent business leaders Ana Fonseca (Logix), John Prabhu (LA North Studios), and Nate Patena (DrinkPAK, LLC), with Todd Stevens (Black Knight Energy) moderating the conversation. Following the panel was economist Dr. Mark Schniepp of California Economic Forecast, who has been keeping a close eye on the rapidly evolving economic impacts of inflation, supply chain restraints, labor force, and more on the national, state and local level. Both the panel and Dr. Schniepp spoke about the labor force in particular as a continued principal challenge.

Dr. Schniepp stated how the labor market in 2022 is strong, but there is rising uncertainty that employment will be impacted by the looming recession that could arrive before the year’s end. Santa Clarita Valley residents, however, have returned to the workforce in 2022 and new labor force entrants in 2023 will create more opportunities for companies to fill job positions faster. In fact, we’ve had complete recovery of jobs in those local industries that were hit the hardest by the pandemic, such as hospitality, leisure accommodation, vacation/travel, and more. Rising job counts almost always imply that (1) the demand for production is increasing and firms, therefore, need more capital, labor, or both to meet that demand, or (2) the region is attracting more businesses who employ local workers or a new inmigrating population of workers.

If you missed the event visit www. scvedc.org/outlook to download the full Economic Outlook report and Dr. Schniepp’s presentation slides. 

Econo Watch

Santa Clarita Valley

Commercial Vacancy Rates Office Space Q2 2022 Q1 2022 Q2 2022 Sq Ft

18.95% 22.70% 2,869,754 Industrial Space 1.40% 1.10% 25,317,438 Total Marked Sq. Ft. Vacancy Percentage: 28,187,192 Office Space - as a % of Vacancy 10.18% 9.97% N/A Industrial Space - as a % of Vacancy 89.82% 90.03% N/A

Building Permits Aug ’22 Jul ‘22 Aug ’21

New Commercial/Industrial Building Permits 6 3 1 Commercial Tenent Improvements/Alterations 26 27 44

Local Company Stock Prices Jul ’22 Jun ‘22 % Change California Resources Corp (CRC) 37.62 46.24 -18.64% Carnival Corp. (CCL) 70.66 78.60 -10.5% FivePoint (FPH) 2.79 3.52 -20.7% Six Flags * (SIX) 18.53 22.46 -17.49% Woodward (WWD) 82.90 92.01 -9.7% Unemployment Rates Aug ’22 Jul ‘22 % Change Santa Clarita 4.3% 4.7% -8.51%

Palmdale 6.9 % 7.2 % -4.17 %

Lancaster

Glendale

Los Angeles County State 7.0% 7.3% -4.11%

4.7% 4.9% -4.08%

4.9% 5.0% -2.00%

4.1% 3.9% 5.13%

Housing Stats SCV Average Home Price

SCV Average Condo Price SCV Home Sales

SCV Condo Sales Aug ’22 Jul ‘22 Aug ’21

886,300 938,800 896,400

562,500 574,900 548,700

1,477 1,331 2,011

597 515 746

SCV Avg. # of Days on Market (SF) 55 49 27 SCV Single Family Home Inventory 211 226 315