Any new economic developments?

[dcsooner]

+1

Everyone yelling about diversifying read this and be quiet. It is happening, just not as fast as you want. Aerospace has some momentum in okc which is why it keeps building and building. Took forever to get the ball rolling but it is rolling well now.

Why the aerospace training center isn’t in maps 4 is astounding.

I am one of those. I applaud any news of good paying jobs, however, these are not diverse , they are DOD Government positions driven by TINKER AFB. OKC is IMO too dependent on Government (State/ Tinker and Oil). Any downturn in one or the other throws the City/State into fiscal downturn (could OKC absord base closure like Sacramento and San Antonio did?) . I am not against these jobs!!! I am saying when will we venture into more manufacturing, research and development, STEM startups. By any objective measure Oklahoma citizens are not keeping up economically. We consistently rank as one of the poorest States. Our low unemployment masks the fact of overall low wages . We lament the lack of retail but people need disposable income to buy higher end products. OKC gets passed over because the income levels are generally not sufficient for these retailers to place a store here. We do get announcements of small 100-400 new jobs over 3-5 years, however these are not large enough quantities affecting large numbers of citizens to raise Oklahomas income levels. Amazon is great, 1,700 jobs nothing to sneeze at but these centers are in 34 States across the country and Oklahoma was really one one the last to get two. Ok go ahead and bash me but please provide evidence that my points are invalid

[HangryHippo]

Why the aerospace training center isn’t in maps 4 is astounding.

Posted the same in another thread. It's baffling.

[gopokes88]

I am one of those. I applaud any news of good paying jobs, however, these are not diverse , they are DOD Government positions driven by TINKER AFB. OKC is IMO too dependent on Government (State/ Tinker and Oil). Any downturn in one or the other throws the City/State into fiscal downturn (could OKC absord base closure like Sacramento and San Antonio did?) . I am not against these jobs!!! I am saying when will we venture into more manufacturing, research and development, STEM startups. By any objective measure Oklahoma citizens are not keeping up economically. We consistently rank as one of the poorest States. Our low unemployment masks the fact of overall low wages . We lament the lack of retail but people need disposable income to buy higher end products. OKC gets passed over because the income levels are generally not sufficient for these retailers to place a store here. We do get announcements of small 100-400 new jobs over 3-5 years, however these are not large enough quantities affecting large numbers of citizens to raise Oklahomas income levels. Amazon is great, 1,700 jobs nothing to sneeze at but these centers are in 34 States across the country and Oklahoma was really one one the last to get two. Ok go ahead and bash me but please provide evidence that my points are invalid

You do understand as we get more DOD based aerospace maintenance, it makes it easier to recruit the private sector aspects because there is already a highly trained workforce they can pull from?

You know like SkyWest.

I don’t know how Oklahoma hurt you but it’s obvious it puts a lense over your eyes and anything related to OK.

And enough with the retail. My god people. That ship has sailed away to never return. You’re like the guy mad about how we never got a horse and buggy industry.

Big national retail is shrinking. For the most part (exceptions here and there, but mostly dead) the shift to smaller local placemaking retail is near permanent.

[G.Walker]

Oklahoma City is a great city, the economy has grown over the last few years & population growth is starting to pick up, after being stagnant the last few years. Oklahoma City is a lot better than it was 20 years ago, and continues to evolve and define itself. We are definitely going forward, not backwards. Securing new 300-400 aerospace engineering, research, & manufacturing jobs is good for Oklahoma City given the size of the city. And we are seeing these high-paying jobs come more frequently then ever. Oklahoma City will soon be a leader in the aerospace industry in the nation & will attract more big companies & jobs to the state.

https://www.tulsaworld.com/communiti...f37f004ad.html

[gopokes88]

I think DCsooner can’t for the life of him distinguish between OKC and OK.

OKC is on an incredible run with a brief pause from the oil crash.

OK is a mess because it, like most other states, is dealing with rural decline in favor of urban growth. And it isn’t necessarily those evil bible thumping knuckle dragging republicans fault. It’s happening everywhere. Globally. OK is rural state when rural is on the way out.

[G.Walker]

Yes, outside of Oklahoma City & Tulsa, the economy is pretty stagnant & digressing. Rural Oklahoma does pull down the state in statistics for education, health, & economy. But if you look at Oklahoma City by itself, I would put it up against any other tier 2 city like Omaha, Tulsa, Birmingham, Memphis, Louisville.

[G.Walker]

None of those cities have built a significant office tower in over 25 years, Oklahoma City has built 2 in the last 7 years, and poised to have another in the next 5.

[G.Walker]

I am a 38y/o black male, married with 3 kids & a dog, living in a nice home in the suburbs, making over $60,000/yr with a graduate degree from OU. This is coming from once being a country boy from McAlester, Ok working night shift at a chicken plant in high school. It could happen, I stayed in Oklahoma, lived and breathed it, and won't go anywhere, anytime soon.

[dcsooner]

You do understand as we get more DOD based aerospace maintenance, it makes it easier to recruit the private sector aspects because there is already a highly trained workforce they can pull from?

You know like SkyWest.

I don’t know how Oklahoma hurt you but it’s obvious it puts a lense over your eyes and anything related to OK.

And enough with the retail. My god people. That ship has sailed away to never return. You’re like the guy mad about how we never got a horse and buggy industry.

Big national retail is shrinking. For the most part (exceptions here and there, but mostly dead) the shift to smaller local placemaking retail is near permanent.

This is an asinine statement. I LOVE Oklahoma, hence my lamenting its too often back seat approach to growth. There HAS been progress, MUCH progress, but, maybe for ME the pace of progress is agonizingly slow. If my facts relative to diversity in industry and [U]below average incomes[U] are untrue please educate me, I am willing to admit error. The point is being so dependent on O&G and Government as a fuel for high paying jobs is too narrow. I guess you could add higher education into that equation. We should continue to promote both, but, to grow and minimize the effect of downturns in those sectors, the State must diversify in greater numbers and across various sectors with higher paying jobs. This is not a bash, it is a plea for leadership at all levels to move the needle to greater prosperity for its citizens.

[gopokes88]

This is an asinine statement. I LOVE Oklahoma, hence my lamenting its too often back seat approach to growth. There HAS been progress, MUCH progress, but, maybe for ME the pace of progress is agonizingly slow. If my facts relative to diversity in industry and [U]below average incomes[U] are untrue please educate me, I am willing to admit error. The point is being so dependent on O&G and Government as a fuel for high paying jobs is too narrow. I guess you could add higher education into that equation. We should continue to promote both, but, to grow and minimize the effect of downturns in those sectors, the State must diversify in greater numbers and across various sectors with higher paying jobs. This is not a bash, it is a plea for leadership at all levels to move the needle to greater prosperity for its citizens.

You’re frustration with change being agonizingly slow is annoying....it’s like that everywhere.

Outside of Dallas, Chicago, NYC(ish, depending on how you define high paying) and LA, almost every city relies on one or two industries for all of their high paying jobs.

[BoulderSooner]

it is worth it to point out oklhaoma has among the lowest cost of living of anywhere in the country as well ..

and rates pretty high in the amount of disposable income per family

[Rover]

So, for all those worried about us being too dependant on oil and gas, following is at least one evaluation of diversity of economies. This is from Hub Wallet. Now I am sure that some will try to discredit Wallet Hub because the results don't fit their opinion of the situation, but they state their criteria.

Following is top 25 big cities. For the full article: https://wallethub.com/edu/cities-wit...onomies/10852/

“Don’t put all your eggs in one basket,” say the wisest investing experts. But that wisdom applies to the economy, too. During the Great Recession, local economies that diversified, tapping into new ideas and innovations, proved to be more resilient than the cities that stuck to their old tricks.

Some researchers have found that greater professional and industrial variety increases a city’s productivity, a pattern in growing and large urban areas in the U.S. and around the globe.

In other words, diversification helps an economy the way it protects an investor’s portfolio: Over time, job gains in some sectors will offset the losses in others. And that was exactly the outcome at the end of the financial crisis, when the number of professions in health care and social assistance multiplied while construction and manufacturing occupation rates declined.

In order to determine the most diversified local economies — and therefore the least susceptible to the changes in the market — WalletHub compared the 501 largest cities across three key metrics: industry diversity, occupational diversity and worker-class diversity."

Ranking by City
1 Sacramento, CA
2 Fresno, CA
3 Bakersfield, CA
4 El Paso, TX
5 Corpus Christi, TX
6 Virginia Beach, VA
7 Oklahoma City, OK
8 Los Angeles, CA
9 Long Beach, CA
10 Honolulu, HI
11 Miami, FL
12 Tucson, AZ
13 Fort Worth, TX
14 Oakland, CA
15 Houston, TX
16 Aurora, CO
17 Memphis, TN
18 Arlington, TX
19 San Antonio, TX
20 Phoenix, AZ
21 Colorado Springs, CO
22 Albuquerque, NM
23 Mesa, AZ
24 Austin, TX
25 Anaheim, CA

[okatty]

Pretty interesting insert in the Journal Record today with various state business stats and they also broke the state down into regions and cited population stats, largest employers, workforce stats, etc. A couple interesting stats - Broken Arrow is 4th largest city with over 106k people - larger than Lawton. They cite OKC as #2 lowest cost of living among cities of 500K or more.

[GoGators]

Speaking of Rankings I actually just saw this today:

http://blog.indeed.com/2019/06/13/be...bseekers-2019/

From the article:

These are cities where job seekers:

Face the least competition for jobs.
Command the highest salaries.
Work at the highest-rated companies.
Face a low likelihood of unemployment

1.San Jose, California
2.San Francisco
3.Boston
4.Birmingham, Alabama
5.Nashville
6.Minneapolis-St. Paul
7.Milwaukee
8.Oklahoma City
9.Washington, D.C.
10.Salt Lake City
11.Indianapolis
12.San Antonio, Texas
13.San Diego
14.Austin, Texas
15.St. Louis, Missouri
16.Sacramento, California
17.Louisville, Kentucky
18.Memphis, Tennessee
19.Virginia Beach, Virginia
20.Columbus, Ohio
21.Kansas City, Missouri-Kansas
22.Cincinnati, Ohio
23.Richmond, Virginia
24.Miami, Florida
25.Providence, Rhode Island

[BoulderSooner]

more jobs coming to OKC but maybe they don't count ...

https://oklahoman.com/article/563431...-expand-in-okc

[GaryOKC6]

So, for all those worried about us being too dependant on oil and gas, following is at least one evaluation of diversity of economies. This is from Hub Wallet. Now I am sure that some will try to discredit Wallet Hub because the results don't fit their opinion of the situation, but they state their criteria.

Following is top 25 big cities. For the full article: https://wallethub.com/edu/cities-wit...onomies/10852/

“Don’t put all your eggs in one basket,” say the wisest investing experts. But that wisdom applies to the economy, too. During the Great Recession, local economies that diversified, tapping into new ideas and innovations, proved to be more resilient than the cities that stuck to their old tricks.

Some researchers have found that greater professional and industrial variety increases a city’s productivity, a pattern in growing and large urban areas in the U.S. and around the globe.

In other words, diversification helps an economy the way it protects an investor’s portfolio: Over time, job gains in some sectors will offset the losses in others. And that was exactly the outcome at the end of the financial crisis, when the number of professions in health care and social assistance multiplied while construction and manufacturing occupation rates declined.

In order to determine the most diversified local economies — and therefore the least susceptible to the changes in the market — WalletHub compared the 501 largest cities across three key metrics: industry diversity, occupational diversity and worker-class diversity."

Ranking by City
1 Sacramento, CA
2 Fresno, CA
3 Bakersfield, CA
4 El Paso, TX
5 Corpus Christi, TX
6 Virginia Beach, VA
7 Oklahoma City, OK
8 Los Angeles, CA
9 Long Beach, CA
10 Honolulu, HI
11 Miami, FL
12 Tucson, AZ
13 Fort Worth, TX
14 Oakland, CA
15 Houston, TX
16 Aurora, CO
17 Memphis, TN
18 Arlington, TX
19 San Antonio, TX
20 Phoenix, AZ
21 Colorado Springs, CO
22 Albuquerque, NM
23 Mesa, AZ
24 Austin, TX
25 Anaheim, CA

This is absolutely correct. If there is any question out our diverse economy just remember 5 years ago OKC was the 11th most diverse. Today we are number 7.

[Teo9969]

OKC did not gain near enough momentum from the 5-year "recession proof city" boom of 2009 to 2014 to have come out of the oil bust as well as we did. That can only mean that there are factors outside of the momentum that we had going for us that have contributed to continued success in spite of our #1 economic driver failing pretty hard. I imagine they go something like this:

1. Low cost of living + capital diversification: For those that had already made bank from 2005 to 2015 in the oil boom, the loss of the job in an economy that is so cheap to live in is not as crushing as it would be in more expensive cities. Additionally, there is no doubt many extracted a great deal of capital and reinvested it in other sectors of the economy by creating their own businesses and investing in others. I wouldn't be surprised if this isn't the reason we haven't seen nearly as many closures in restaurants as we would have expected over the last 3 years, and is also a contributing factor to why real estate development dramatically slowed down from the pace we were seeing earlier in the decade.

2. Aerospace adding significant jobs to the economy (do we actually have a rough estimate from the 1st half of the decade and the 2nd half?) It seems like we've added north of 1,000 high-paying jobs in the decade.

3. Paycom went public not too long before the oil bust and IPOed with ~850 employees and a ~$0.750B market cap. It has since ballooned to well over 3000 employees and a $13.00+B market cap. Wouldn't be surprised if over 100 OKC-based employees have been made millionaires (or close to) by the end of the decade.

4. Less economic leakage. Had the bust happened 5 years earlier, we would have continued to see those that do have money in this city continue to spend that money in other markets in a way that was more common between 1995 and 2010. A lot more people are okay with staying around and going to any of the plethora of quality restaurants we have now or enjoying some of the fledgling art community that is developing. There's still a long way to go in this category, but the strides made in the former half of the decade definitely patched a lot of holes in the boat that would have gone underwater a lot easier otherwise.

[Bunty]

So, really Tulsa needs to be more concerned that not a lot is going on with them.

[Bunty]

Yes, outside of Oklahoma City & Tulsa, the economy is pretty stagnant & digressing. Rural Oklahoma does pull down the state in statistics for education, health, & economy.

9 out of 17 micropolitan areas in Oklahoma have added population since 2010, so at least the decline isn't everywhere in rural Oklahoma.

[josh]

Yes, outside of Oklahoma City & Tulsa, the economy is pretty stagnant & digressing. Rural Oklahoma does pull down the state in statistics for education, health, & economy. But if you look at Oklahoma City by itself, I would put it up against any other tier 2 city like Omaha, Tulsa, Birmingham, Memphis, Louisville.

Not to go on a tangent but none of those are tier 2 cities. They’re tier 3 or lower.

[Plutonic Panda]

Not to go on a tangent but none of those are tier 2 cities. They’re tier 3 or lower.

+1

[dcsooner]

Understand Mid States is moving its headquarters to Houston, can someone confirm?

[Bellaboo]

Understand Mid States is moving its headquarters to Houston, can someone confirm?

Read that today. They moved to Tulsa from Houston a few years ago. They've had some problems of their own I understand. At one time they tried to merge with Sand Ridge but fell through.

[Pete]

Understand Mid States is moving its headquarters to Houston, can someone confirm?

Yes, this has been announced.

But their quite small HQ was in Tulsa...

[gopokes88]

Understand Mid States is moving its headquarters to Houston, can someone confirm?

They aren’t moving.

They are merging with Amplify energy in Houston. Amplify will be the new operator. Most Midstates employees will be laid off.