“Life is always uncertain, but sometimes we realize it more,” Dr. Lisa Brown, director of Washington State Department of Commerce stated near the end of EDASC’s 2022 Economic Forecast Night that took place virtually on March 10, 2022. Brown’s words summed up the evening, which provided a year-in-review and look ahead into economic trends shaping Skagit County and the world’s economy.
 
The event featured four keynote speakers, Dr. Laurie Trautman, Dr. Annelies Vance-Sherman, Dr. Vange Ocasio Hochheimer, and Dr. Lisa Brown. Each covered a different subject of economics including supply chain and trade, employment issues, economic recovery, and housing. Each speaker brought perspective to their topic of interest and helped us in the audience understand where we are standing economically and what to expect in the future.

Here are our key takeaways from the event:

• Our economy is on track to recover jobs lost, but we are facing a constrained labor force. Unemployment rate is low while at the same time there are many job openings. This puts workers in a position of power as employers compete to fill jobs.  
• The pandemic has not affected the workforce equally. Rather than a “V” shaped recovery as expected, there has been a “K” shaped recovery. Put simply, this means that some industries are recovering, and some are not. Additionally, the pandemic has affected women and minorities (who tend to work in industries that have not recovered quickly) at a more severe rate than it has affected men. Inclusive economic recovery with equitable policies is important for a full recovery.
• Our cross-border ecosystem with Canada is strained and how this will affect our local economy moving forward is uncertain. Some reasons for this include many factors. One being that “Buy American” campaigns rather than “buy North American” ones have caused trade tensions. Another was little collaboration on pandemic border policies.
• Grand programs in Skagit County are on track in aiding industries hit the hardest during the pandemic.

On top of the economic effects of the pandemic, our local economy is being affected by the war in Ukraine as we see our gas prices increase. The speakers acknowledged during the panel discussion that the war had not yet started when they recorded their keynote speeches and even in that short time much has changed. Trautman, the director of Border Policy Research Institute at Western Washington University emphasized that the US involvement level could have drastic impacts on the global economy but impacts of the invasion are still unclear. 

View a recording of the Economic Forecast Night HERE.