“Headwinds” to Affect Atlanta Economy Through End of 2013

According to Dr. Rajeev Dhawan, director of GSU’s Economic Forecasting Center, growth forces have fully taken hold across the country and locally with sustained growth in home building, existing home sales, and auto sales.

“We are doing, like the national economy, maybe a little bit better on the growth on paper,” says Dr. Dhawan. “But in terms of growth and everything, it’s just mirroring. We’re dealing with the same headwinds and surviving the same way.”

Those headwinds are external forces:  fluctuations in the global economy, trouble in the Mideast and — here at home — settling on a new federal budget.

Dhawan says we’ll continue to see job growth in metro Atlanta, though it will be slow, until the end of the year.

If the headwinds dissipate, he says the national and local economy should pick up next year and even more in 2015.

A note of disclosure: Dr. Dhawan serves on the board of directors WABE’s parent organization, the Atlanta Educational Telecommunications Collaborative.