Bolstered by major construction projects and a strong start to the holiday shopping season, Stamford officials say their city is faring well and add that perhaps the state should take notes.
“Stamford”™s continued to fair exceptionally well, but Stamford”™s also being impacted as to what”™s going on the world as well,” Mayor Dannel Malloy said.
Stamford”™s black Friday weekend showed greater sales than 2007.
“It was up over last year,” said Jack Condlin, president of the Chamber of Commerce. “The whole weekend was good. It was the kind of shot in the arm we needed.”
Condlin like many taking a look at the economy said consumer confidence on the whole remains low.
“We need residents willing to share sacrifice, not merely vent frustration,” said Christopher P. Bruhl, president and CEO of The Business Council of Fairfield County. “Most importantly, we need to see these times as transformational, not temporary. Our choices must be about fundamentals, not quick fixes.”Â
Condlin said that it”™s not surprising that many have a don”™t-spend, be-conservative mentality, but this self-serving attitude is counterproductive.
 “People have stopped spending money and are paying down debt everywhere,” Condlin said. “Overall, our understanding is people in general are pulling back on everything; it”™s impacting folks across the board.”
Condlin did say that the holiday season is going to hit the revenues of the retail and restaurant industries.
“It was encouraging last week (Thanksgiving week) that the market did what it did,” he said. “We had very successful post Thanksgiving shopping. I think we had a trend going, but we also see the potential for a trend changer. It”™s so difficult to judge because things are changing so rapidly.”
Connecticut”™s unemployment rate is at 6.5 percent, according to October numbers, but has not yet reached the unemployment depths seen in the early 1990s recession, Bruhl said.Â
“We have lost 5,200 jobs this year, or about one-third of a percentage point,” he said. “On Election Day, unemployment in the Bridgeport-Stamford region was 5.8 percent, up 45 percent from the four percent level of Election Day 2004. Employment numbers only tell part of the story.”Â
Bruhl said the wage rates of the newly unemployed and wage reductions of the still employed are also highly relevant.Â
“These lost earnings can”™t be taxed and can”™t be spent, hurting both public sector budgets and all types of local businesses,” Bruhl said.
Condlin said the consumer confidence drop has been at a low since gas doubled in price, despite having settled since then.
“It took the toll then, but it”™s insignificant at this point,” Condlin said. “The one thing we said at our annual meeting, is that Stamford”™s economy is still a good strong economy and we have some bright spots here.”
If RBS opens in the spring, he expects to see a similarly significant influx in the city”™s economy as was seen when neighboring UBS opened.
Bruhl also found the financial services industry is holding a lot of sway in the economies of Stamford and Fairfield County.
“In Fairfield County, we are witnessing a fundamental shift in the financial services sector, a sector that contributes substantially to regional jobs and income,” Bruhl said.Â
The finance and insurance sector, a dominant industry in Stamford, accounts for almost 40,000 jobs, a little over 9 percent of all jobs in the county.Â
“This sector becomes even more critical to the state”™s income tax revenues, paying out almost 30 percent of all industry wages,” Bruhl said.
That number comes to just under $10 billion in wages in 2007, he said.
“I think that we”™re going to do much better than the rest of the state and coming out of this thing much faster,” Condlin said.
Condlin pointed to cranes at the Trump Park and High Grove projects as well as the rest of Stamford”™s continued downtown redevelopment as physical points of confidence in Stamford”™s economy.
“For more than a decade, the city of Stamford has done an excellent job of improving and expanding services while reducing the public work force through a thoughtful process of redesign and attrition,” Bruhl said.
The same cannot be said for state government where people are vulnerable to revenue reductions because state operations are both outmoded and inefficient, Bruhl said.
“While the state”™s population has been essentially flat for 15 years, the state work force has grown almost 20 percent,” Bruhl said. “No reorganization or redesign has occurred.”
The status quo has run its course, he said.
