PITTSBORO — Speaking Tuesday morning to the Chatham Chamber of Commerce’s annual Chatham Development Meeting, N.C. State economist Michael Walden told an audience of more than 300 that a projected recession is likely coming, but will be farther off and look different than the Great Recession of 2007.
Walden’s comments came during a presentation on the national economy to an assembled crowd of business leaders from across Chatham County at Pittsboro’s Agricultural & Conference Center. Walden is a William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor and Extension Economist at N.C. State and serves on the Graduate Economics faculty at The Poole College of Management. Most of his presentation Tuesday revolved around the economy of the United States.
News outlets and financial experts have began discussing, at the national level, the possibility of another recession after a prolonged period of consistent economic growth. But Walden said he didn’t “see any flashing red lights,” and that a recession would most likely happen in 2021.
“I don’t see a recession staring us in the face,” he said. “In economics terms, 2021 is a long way off. My current view is no recession next year.”
He next discussed the “big challenge,” a trade deal with China. President Donald Trump has made tariffs on China a central part of his actions and messaging in recent weeks, leading to retaliatory tariffs from China.
Walden said the breaking point with China was three requests from the U.S. — open markets to U.S. companies, China “backing off” on supporting internal companies competing against American corporations and China removing requirements imposed on American companies going to China to compete agianst Chinese companies. Walden said China was most opposed to the last two, and that the trade dispute between China and the U.S. has “hurt us.”
“The estimate that I think that makes most sense is that it’s shaved 0.6 percentage points off of GDP growth, which is a big deal,” he said. “This is a big deal. You throw on top of this the problems that other countries — Europe, China, Japan, all growing more slowly. This is a drag on our country as well.”
The trade dispute has hurt North Carolina’s economy as well, Walden said. While the state has added jobs at a faster pace than the nation as a whole since last July, manufacturing output has slowed, and agriculture has suffered as well.
“Our farmers have been walloped by the trade dispute,” he said. “Our farmers’ output is down by a full 10 percent.”
Chatham County, he said in brief comments, has continued to grow. The county’s job base has grown by 2.1 percent from the first quarter of 2018 to the first quarter of 2019, keeping in pace with national numbers.
The Chamber’s meeting featured updates and presentations from a number of officials and business leaders and was sponsored by H&B Furniture Legacy.
Reporter Zachary Horner can be reached at zhorner@chathamnr.com or on Twitter at @ZachHornerCNR.