LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Greater Louisville Inc. released its quarterly economic summary highlighting the regional economy’s top trends from the first quarter. The report summarizes key vital signs of the economy, including unemployment and employment rates, labor force, job openings, and employment changes across industries, as well as an update on GLI’s regional economic development project pipeline.
“Our region started the year in a strong position and continued that strong momentum through the first quarter. We currently have 29 projects in our pipeline that could bring more than 3,500 jobs to the region and more than $1 billion in economic investment,” said Sarah Davasher-Wisdom, president and CEO of GLI. “We look forward to working with our regional partners to close these deals and continuing to bring more projects to our pipeline to produce more investment, jobs, and opportunities in Greater Louisville.”
Key insights from the new report include:
- Advanced manufacturing continues to be a major opportunity for business attraction and expansion. 35 percent of projects in the pipeline are in advanced manufacturing and logistics and 81.47 percent of the 3,570 potential jobs fall into that industry.
- The national labor force finally exceeded pre-pandemic levels during the first quarter of 2023. However, the labor force participation rate remains lower than pre-pandemic levels.
- Despite higher interest rates and a sustained period of above-normal inflation, national and regional unemployment rates remained low at 3.5 percent in the first quarter of 2023.
- Most industries in the region have seen employment growth in the past 12 months, with information seeing a six percent growth since last year.
- Louisville’s total employment at the end of the first quarter was at the highest level of any point within the past ten years.
“While businesses across our region continue to face challenges related to workforce shortages and inflation, major indicators show our economy is in a strong position at the beginning of this year,” said Clark Welch, GLI’s director of economic development. “While national discussion of a looming recession later this year continues, the economy is currently not showing signs of a major slowdown.”
