The News Herald had a couple of encouraging articles this past week. One was about our county population (link)…it posted a small increase for the most recent reporting period (July 09 to July 10). The increase was very small, only a 0.1% increase, but it was better than the population flight that we had seen in earlier periods. When the construction boom ground to a halt, all those tradespeople left the county looking for work. That dynamic applied to the entire state. But perhaps this small population uptick is a sign of things to come.
The other article had even better news! Eastern Shipbuilding in Allentown is very close to securing a contract that will bring 300 jobs to the county (link)! Now that is the kind of news that we need! People with jobs buy houses, and our local house sales can’t recover until our workforce is bringing home paychecks. The News Herald article predicts that the 300 shipbuilding jobs will have a multiplier effect large enough to create 1500 ancillary jobs! That sounds pretty optimistic to me, but no matter how many other jobs this contract creates, it’s all good news. There is still “one more hurdle” in the road, but the final decision should be made in the next few weeks. Keep your fingers crossed!