By Corina Vanek | Arizona Republic
A “short and shallow” recession is likely on the horizon in 2023, but could end as soon as early 2024, and Phoenix could be better positioned than the rest of the U.S. to weather a downturn.
Danny Court, partner and senior economist with Elliott D. Pollack & Co., said Phoenix has outpaced the nation in recovering jobs lost during the Covid-19 pandemic. The U.S. recently reached full recovery, but Phoenix has already recovered 140% of the jobs lost, meaning that the metro now has more jobs than it did before the pandemic.
Court was the keynote speaker Thursday at the IREM CCIM Economic Forecast held at The Arizona Biltmore.
“We’ve had so much economic development success,” Court said, listing growth in industries like semiconductors, electric vehicles and battery manufacturing. “We are no longer a construction-led, growth-led state.”
Arizona ranks sixth in the nation for job growth since 2019, Court said.
Affordability isn’t a selling point anymore
However, he said, Phoenix has lost one of the major drivers that economic developers had touted for years: housing affordability. Citing research from the National Association of Home Builders and Wells Fargo, Court said the Phoenix metro’s housing affordability index at the end of 2022 was 22.5, meaning that only 22.5% of homes sold were considered affordable to a family earning the area median income.
