The Harrisburg Regional Chamber & CREDC are gearing up for the Harrisburg Regional Economic Forecast February 13. The Harrisburg Regional Economic Forecast offers local business leaders and finance professionals a must- attend luncheon featuring a keynote from a leading economist on local, national, and global financial trends.

Ryan Unger, President and CEO of the Harrisburg Regional Chamber & CREDC says the capital region has a strong and vibrant economy.

“Our unemployment typically mirrors because of the industrial mix that we have, and it remains low, some of the lowest since I've been doing this over 20 years, right? It's a little bit higher than it was last year, but again, that mirrors a lot of trends and the result of a bunch of different policy choices, I think the curve inflation to get us to where we're at, but we've seen growth in our employment and our population and a lot of positive trends here in the Harrisburg capital region, “said Unger.

Central Pennsylvania also had the largest increase in remote work due to the business and professional services in our area.

“I think certainly the continued impact of remote work we've seen impact us significantly. We have a project we're gonna talk about at our economic forecast luncheon upcoming, and we benchmark ourselves against other peer metros with similar economies and population, “said Unger.

Ryotaro Tashiro, Outreach Economist and Advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, says the economy looks fairly healthy and the job market has been experiencing some growth.

“You know, professional services, eds and meds are really big in the area. The one thing I would add is that, you know, leisure and hospitality has always been, you know, fairly a big part of the labor market in the area, right, so we know that that sector of the economy lost a ton of jobs during the first couple of years of the pandemic. That particular sector has been rebounding fairly steadily and significantly. So, I would say those three sectors all happen to be service providing sectors, by the way, you know, have been the most important parts of the growth in the local labor market. And I don't see any reason why this will change in the future, “said Tashrio.

Listen to the podcast to hear the entire conversation. 

 

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