Sales have really sucked all year and continue to do so. We are down close to 20% over last year and last year we were down 30+% over the previous year. But I am cautiously optimististic - I have to be.
So far there is nothing going on in our county. Although our state unemployment rate dropped last month, our county unemployment rate went up. Addidas did just open a new facility and they will be adding 100 jobs during the next six months, but the Disney plant just annouced they were shutting down and will be laying off 100 over the next 6 months - so no net gain in jobs. Several small Boeing vendors have annouced that they will be opening up in our area, but none in our county and it may be a couple of years before any of them open.
All seven of our school systems in our county have just got their new allocation of funds from the state, all seven systems had their budget cut by millions.
Last week we sent out full color postcards to the 1,000 employers in our county, including every single school, non-profit, fitness club, church, every business within a two mile radius, and every employer with 50 or more employees in our county. Out of 1,000 post cards advertising big disount prices on banners, we have not had a single call. We also put the same adv. on the banner that we have up on our building.
I am glad to hear that so many of you are doing so well. There are always winners and loosers in any economy, looks like we got a lot of winners on this forum. Either that or us loosers just aint speaking up.
But here's the upside:
The recession officially started in Dec of 07, we had a record year in '08 and did not suffer any downturn in business until Dec of 08. So I am thinking that my local economy may have a one year delay in this recession cycle. The recession officially ended third quarter of last year, so my hope is that my recession will officially end in the third Q of this year.
