Economic Optimism
I’m attending a conference in Florida this week, and despite all the talk of economic gloom & doom, I have a number of reasons for optimism, which bodes well both for consultants and tuition-paying families:
- The stock market is up for the year
- Consumer confidence was up in April & May
- Consumer spending was up 2.2% in the first quarter
- New unemployment filings were down the last several weeks
While the news is clearly not all positive, and remains bleak in certain communities, overall it seems we are slowly turning a corner.
Those who attended my breakouts in San Francisco or Baltimore know that I believe hiring consultants is most closely linked to consumer confidence. In this regard things appear to be heading in the right direction.
The next 12 months may not be great, but we may be at or near the bottom. What are others seeing in their communities?
Posted by Mark Sklarow, IECA Executive Director
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Interesting insights Mark. In California, the dire situation in the state budget may lead to layoffs of in-school counselors. Families may have to decide between a do-it-yourself approach or look to hire an independent counselor. There really are not many more places to cut the k-12 education budget for our schools other than eliminating teachers and staff, which is very sad indeed. I hope it is consumer confidence that leads to families choosing to hire counselors, but it could be that there is no other option.