Alabama’s Coastal EconomicInventory
Quarterly Report: October 22, 2010
Dr Terry Hanson and Ms Jeana Baker
Summary: The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill will have significant impacts on coastal communities in the Gulf region for a number of years. In addition to recognizing the long-term effects as a result to the oil spill, it is equally important to understand the context of the oil spill by realizing pre-spill disturbances such as hurricanes, economic recessions, and human-caused activities. Although the magnitude of the oil spill has not been determined, this report serves as first quarter work regarding inventory and providing an overview of the trends that characterize Alabama’s coastal economies. This report includes employment statistics, commercial fishing landings’ trends and industry composition, tourism, recreational, and seafood processing impacts forBaldwin and Mobile Counties, all of which establish a baseline for future periods of work involving coastal impact assessments. Additionally, the work conducted in the first quarter has been placed on a website developed during this period and can be found at:
Background: On July 15, 2010 SeaGrant Extension created a Response and Recovery Task Force for the five affected Gulf States. As a part of Extension’s initiative, a Disaster Assistance team emerged and began compiling key economic indicators related to various sectors of the community and work force for Alabama’s coastal counties.
Employment: Jobs are the backbone to any economy. With high unemployment rates nationwide, this is a growing concern for many Americans especially those directly impacted by the oil spill. To capture the employment dynamics (pre-spill) for Mobile and Baldwin Counties, a table of major employers as well as marine-related jobs by sector were compiled from secondary and are presented below.
Industry Composition: If jobs are the wheels, industry is the engine, which keeps the economy running. Alabama’s leading job generator for the State, Baldwin and Mobile countiesand the State comes from the local and state government sector, see Highest Ranked Industries below and earnings per work by sector.
Alabama, Highest Ranked Industries
Source: EMSI Complete Employment - 2nd Quarter 2010
Baldwin County, Highest Ranked Largest Industries
Source: EMSI Complete Employment - 2nd Quarter 2010
Mobile, County Highest Ranked Industries
Source: EMSI Complete Employment - 2nd Quarter 2010
For more details related to the breakdown of jobs by sector for Mobile and Baldwin Counties and state, please refer to the industry table created on the official Marine Resources Assessment Web site at
Marine-related Fisheries Employment Statistics: 1st Quarter (Pre-Spill) 2009 and 2010.
Baldwin County, AL Marine-RelatedJobs / Yr 2009 / Yr 2010 / % Change
114112 Shellfish Fishing / 202 / 197 / -2%
114111 Finfish fishing / 0 / 0 / ⁄
311712 Fresh and Frozen Seafood Processing / 247 / 266 / 8%
424460 Fish & Seafood Merchant Wholesalers / 47 / 48 / 2%
445220 Fish markets / 54 / 59 / 9%
487210 Scenic sightseeing water transportation / 87 / 92 / 6%
441222 Boat Dealers / 119 / 121 / 2%
483114 Coastal (Great Lakes) Passenger Transport / 0 / 0 / ⁄
713930 Marinas & boat clubs / 123 / 131 / 7%
Source:EMSI 1st Quarter Employment statistics
Mobile County, AL Marine-RelatedJobs / Yr 2009 / Yr 2010 / % Change
114112 Shellfish Fishing / 154 / 126 / -18%
114111 Finfish fishing / 500 / 474 / -5%
311712 Fresh and Frozen Seafood Processing / 806 / 798 / -1%
424460 Fish & Seafood Merchant Wholesalers / 94 / 67 / -29%
445220 Fish markets / 66 / 60 / -6%
487210 Scenic sightseeing water transportation / 41 / 45 / 10%
441222 Boat Dealers / 180 / 184 / 2%
483114 Coastal (Great Lakes) Passenger Transport / 101 / 106 / 5%
713930 Marinas & boat clubs / 46 / 50 / 9%
Source:EMSI 1st Quarter Employment statistics
Tourism: According to Alabama’s Travel Economic Impact Report, a total of 21 million travelers visited Alabama in 2009. In fact the Gulf Coast Region leads the state with 65% of travelers choosing Baldwin, Jefferson, Madison, Mobile, and Montgomery as their destination (2009) and with the largest total travel expenditures, travel-related earnings, and travel-related employment for the state of Alabama (2009). See diagrams in appendix.
In 2009 4.6 million guests visited Alabama’s Gulf Coast and spent $2.3 billion. In return this produced 40,000 travel-related jobs and accounted for $915 million in wages and salary (2009).
Recreational Fishing: Alabama’s coast, much like the state’s rich biodiversity, is home to over 300 species of saltwater fish (Alabama Waterfront Access, 2010). Since Alabama’s coast is a prime sport fishing destination, there were a total of 89,818 saltwater licenses for both resident and non-residents issued in 2007 (ADCNR).
Commercial Landings’ Trends
The richness and abundance attributed to coastal fisheries directly correlates to a healthy ecosystem. Estuary-dependent organisms such as shrimp depend on quality estuaries for breeding. Thus more shrimp equates to a greater return in dollar value. In fact, brown and white shrimp alone account for 80 percent of Alabama’s commercial fishing revenue (Mobile Bay NEP, 2008).
Since commercial fishing plays an important ecological and economic role in the Gulf region, it vital to include commercial landings in the inventory. Furthermore, this report takes into account landings and values’ trends. The graph below shows landings for all species from 2000-2008. Additional landings and values for blue crab, oysters, and shrimp can be found on the official Marine Resources Assessment Web site at
Source: NOAA, NMFS Commercial Fishery Landings Data
Seafood Processing: Alabama has a total of 80+ seafood processorand wholesaler establishments, which contribute the bulk of the Gulf Coast’s processing from Louisiana and Mississippi (Walton, 2010). Below is a graph that depicts the poundage and values of Alabama’s seafood processing from 2000-2008.
Source: NOAA NMFS, personal comm. 2010
Concluding Remarks
As the Alabama Disaster Assistance Task Force moves forward with its economic assessment, one will see the importance of thisinitial report which has broadly defined the primary indicators showcasing Alabama's coastal economies. This inventory will lead to in-depth assessment of the damages caused by the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. Next quarter’s report will determine baseline values for the indicators mentioned in this study.
References
Alabama’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources retrieved on May 27, 2010.
Alabama Tourism Department, Travel Economic Impact Report 2009, retrieved on August 26, 2010.
Economic Modeling Specialists, Inc., retrieved on July 10, 2010.
Mobile Bay National Estuary Program. State of Mobile Bay: A Status Report on Alabama’s Coastline from the Delta to Our Coastal Waters, 2008.
NOAA Fisheries, NMFS retrieved on May 26, 2010.
NOAA Fisheries, NMFS. Seafood Poundage and Values. Personal Communication on August 12, 2010.
US Fish and Wildlife Service, retrieved on June 25, 2010.
Walton, William. 2010. List of seafood processors and wholesalers. Unpublished.
Appendix
EXPENDITURES BY ALABAMA TRAVEL
Source: Travel
About EMSI Data Sources and Calculations
Input-Output Data
The input-output model in this report is created using the national Input-Outputmatrix provided by the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis. This is combinedwith the national Total Gross Output, the regional Total Gross Output, the landarea of the subject region, regional DIRT data and regional in/out commuterpatterns in order to calculate regional requirements, imports and exports.
The model uses matrix algebra to calculate the regional multiplier, the resultingmatrix is multiplied by the sales vector and converted back to jobs or earnings.
Specifically, this data comes from the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau ofEconomic Analysis, Industry Economic Accounts: Benchmark and Annual Input-Output(I-O) Accounts.
Industry Data
In order to capture a complete picture of industry employment, EMSI basicallycombines covered employment data from Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages(QCEW) produced by the Department of Labor with total employment data inRegional Economic Information System (REIS) published by the Bureau of EconomicAnalysis (BEA), augmented with County Business Patterns (CBP) and Non-employerStatistics (NES) published by the U.S. Census Bureau. Projections are based onthe latest available EMSI industry data, 15-year past local trends in eachindustry, growth rates in statewide and (where available) sub-state areaindustry projections published by individual state agencies, and (in part)growth rates in national projections from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
State Data Sources
This report uses state data from the following agencies: Alabama Department ofIndustrial Relations.
Quarterly Report Comments:
Pre-developments Leading to Economic Inventory
Dr Terry Hanson and Ms Jeana Baker
This work, presented below, discusses our initial development via our Web site and proceeds to show the essential components to our economic inventory for Baldwin and Mobile Counties, Alabama.
We are accessing the damages associated with the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill for Baldwin and Mobile counties in the State of Alabama (and the Gulf in the Multi-state proposal, though we will work with Alabama data and coordinate with other state marine economists to be on the same page and using the same data). To accurately account for Alabama’s coastal economic impacts, we assume a holistic approach that encompasses the following methods: use of historical data collection, economic (input/output) impact modeling, and surveys of specific sectors that will be determined.
I.Historical Data Collection from NOAA Fisheries Statistics (NFMS) site.
1)Industry Impacts
Alabama Commercial Fishing
Annual Commercial Landings + Values
Monthly Commercial Landings + Values
A) Shrimp Landings+values
B) Oyster Landings+values
C) Blue Crab Landings+values
2) Seafood Related
A)Annual Processing volumes + values
B)Marine Aquaculture
3)Recreational Fishing 2007 saltwater fishing licenses
II.Economic Modeling Specialists Inc. (EMSI ) using North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) and working with Amelia Stehouwer of AU’s Economic Community Development Institute (ECDI).
In the model, we assumed a one-time impact, spanning 1 year using 2009 as our base year. We let jobs = input and earnings = output for:
114112Shellfish Fishing
114111Finfish fishing
311712Fresh and Frozen Seafood Processing
424460Fish & Seafood Merchant Wholesalers
445220Fish markets
487210Scenic sightseeing water transportation
441222Boat Dealers
483114 Coastal (Great Lakes) Passenger Transport (?)
713930Marinas & boat clubs
For the 9 industries we evaluated (below), a total of 5,238 jobs would be lost in the State of Alabama.
IV.Oil Spill Network(with whom we coordinated via teleconference and meetings)
Dr. Chuck Adams, Marine Economist, University of Florida
Dr. Gail Cramer, LSU Head of the Department of Agricultural Economics
Dr. Ben Posadas, Associate Extension/Research Professor of Economics, Mississippi State University-Coastal Research and Extension Center
Drs Brian Richard and Chad Miller, Economists,University of Southern Mississippi
Mr. Patrick Rose, AU Center for Government Services (CGS)
Ms. AmeliaHallStehouwer (M.PA), ResearchandCommunicationsSpecialist, Economic Community Development Institute (ECDI),Auburn UniversityandExtension
Dr. LaDon Swann,Director, Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium
Dr. William Walton, Extension Specialist and Assistant Professor, Fisheries and Allied Aquaculture, Auburn University
VI. Creation of Fisheries and Allied Aquaculture’s (FAA) Marine Resources Assessment Web site:
Goal: To create a Website disseminating graphs, maps, and facts related to the Gulf Oil Spill and its effects on Alabamians. This information will be accessible to the Auburn campus community, state/local governments, and the general public via Fisheries and Allied Aquaculture’s (FAA) website and it will be linked to Auburn University’s oil spill site.
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