While the state as a whole has become relatively more optimistic about the state of the economy, Eastern Washington businesses are just as pessimistic about it as they were in 2012, says the findings of a survey by the Spokane office of Portland-based Gallatin Group Inc. and Boise-based G Squared LLC.
Both the business sector and the general population as a whole think the economy will improve or stay the same during the next two years, the survey results say.
The survey polled just over 1,000 people statewide, including 425 Eastern Washington business respondents introduced to the survey by the Journal of Business and a group in Tri-Cities. The poll has a 4.9 percent margin of error. Gallatin and G Squared presented the results at a Greater Spokane Incorporated lunch on Dec. 12.
When asked to rate the current economy in Washington state, 68 percent of Eastern Washington businesspeople said it’s fair or poor, while 32 percent said it’s good or excellent. Those results closely mirror the results of a Gallatin Group poll conducted last year, in which 66 percent of Eastern Washington businesses rated the economy as fair or poor.
Though the business community’s outlook appears to have changed little, fewer respondents statewide gave the economy poor marks this year than in 2012. In the most recent survey, two-thirds of respondents gave the state’s economy fair and poor marks. While that’s far from a glowing assessment, that’s better than last year, when four out of five respondents described the economy as fair or poor.
Eastern Washington businesspeople were divided on whether the economy will improve or stay the same, with 39 percent of respondents in each camp. Less than 20 percent thought the economy would get worse.
Statewide, 36 percent of respondents said the economy would improve, and 31 percent thought it would stay the same. A quarter of them expect it to get worse.
When businesspeople statewide were asked about the most important sector in the state economy, technology with 24 percent edged out the combined category of agriculture, fishing, and timber, with 21 percent—a statistically insignificant margin of three percentage points. The general public more strongly identified technology as the more important sector, with 28 percent of the vote. Aerospace came in second, with 22 percent, following by agriculture, fishing, and timber, at 18 percent.
In Eastern Washington, however, agriculture, fishing, and timber was the clear favorite, with 42 percent of participants selecting it as the most important sector. Technology came in a distant second, with 18 percent, followed by manufacturing, at 14 percent.
Greg Strimple, the Boise-based principal of G Squared and the pollster who conducted the survey, says that people who thought technology was the most important sector were more likely to have a positive outlook on the economy, whereas those seeing natural resources as most important were more skeptical.
“It’s the tale of two economies,” Strimple says. “Those old economies feeling a little long in the tooth, and the new economies are really booming.”