Tri-City Area and Real Estate Blog

The Hanford Area Economic Investment Fund wants business owners from Benton and Franklin counties to know about their loans, which can range from $150,000 to $500,000. The loans are awarded for buying land, research & development, equipment or other improvement projects, and the applicants must demonstrate the need for and the ability to repay the loans.  For more information call 943-9185 to speak with Art Tackett or email: atackett@bfcog.us

Food processing gross sales in Benton County reached $727 million 2007 and were $126 million in Franklin County.

And food processing jobs provided $130 million in wages in Benton and Franklin counties in 2007 – a 20 percent increase in three years.

The those food processing industry has played a significant role in the area’s economy for many years, but those jobs likely have never had more value than now.

Over the past year, Benton and Franklin counties have lost about 1,000 jobs, mostly in construction, said Dean Schau, Washington Employment Security Department regional labor economist.

But the area’s fertile agriculture industry coupled with humans’ basic need for food, makes the industry more recession resistant than others.  “People always have to eat,”  Schau said.

There are more than 200 varieties of fruits, vegetables, grains and berries, grown in Benton and Franklin counties, including appleas, aspargas, barlet, carrots, corns, cherries, grapes, peas, onions, pears, peaches, wheat and potatoes.

And in the past seven years, food processing employment has increased by more than 80 percent, according to state statistics. “One of every 10 food processing workers in the state is here,” said Schau.

The area’s major food processing emploeyers include ConAgra/Lamb Weston, Twin City foods, Resers and Pasco Processing, which was formerly JR Simplot. Lamb Weston, with more than 2,100 workers, is the fourth-largest employer in the Tri-Cities.

The Mid-Columbia provides a perfect environment for agriculture processing companies, where they are close to the food source and have adequate trasnsportation, including rail and barge access down river to the Port of Portland.

Schau said in 200, there were 28 individual food processers in Benton and Franklin counties, mostly processing potatoes and fruit juice. And the area’s wine industry, which i also tallied under food processing category by the state, included a dozen wineries with 275 year-round jobs.

Now more than 80 plants, including wineries, can be counted in the two counties.

They include the major players, a growing number of wineries, and a handful of people making speialty items, like Chukar Cherries and Apres Vin, a Prosser company that produces gourmet varietal grape seed ol.

“Food processing is one of our target industries,” said Carl Adrian, presiden of the Tri-Cities Industrial Development Council.  Adrain said much of the food processing dome in the area is “one-step” – taking fresh produce off the farms and freexing or pakcinf it, or making frozen potato products.

He said TRIDEC is researching what it can to do attract companies who produce convenience foods, like Reser’s.

“That’s the next step, pot pies, Hot Pockets – these jobs tend to require more background and many require a clean room”, he said.

The recession’s impacts on the sales of the processed convenience foods may not be great, but the economic situation is preventing many companies from expanding right now, Adrian said.

“We had a fairly significant food processor who had been looking at the area, but that project has been put on hold, partly bcause of the economy,” said Adrian. “Capital markets right now make it hard for them to expand.”

 Source: Tri City Herald

By the Herald staff

More homebuyers in the Tri-Cities will be eligible for loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration thanks to a provision in the stimulus package that temporarily raises loan limits, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development accounted Tuesday.

In the Tri-Cities and Benton and Franklin counties, the limit for a single-family house is now $275,000.

For a duplex, the limit is $352,050.

On a three-unit house, the limit is $425,550 and on a four-unit house it’s $528,850.

The limits previously were $271,050, $347,000, $419,400 and $521,250, respectively, and were established as the permanent limits at the beginning of 2009.

The most recent change in limits applies to all FHA-insured mortgage loans written between now and Dec. 31st.

The Tri-Cities gained about 3,100 non-farm jobs over the past year, but the national economic slowdown is beginning to take a toll as 800 non-farm jobs were lost last month, the State Employment Security Department reported Tuesday.

Annual data shows the Tri-Cities has weathered the economic storm better than much of the state, said Dean Schau, regional labor economist for the state Employment Security Department. he said the unemployment rate for Benton and Franklin counties in November was 6.1 percent, compared with the state’s overall rate of 6.4 percent.

Schau said area job gains came in the professional and business services sector; the retail, leisure and hospitality industries, and at school districts. But he said job growth has slowed and the number of unemployment insurance claims has risen significantly. Most of that is from losses in seasonal employment in agriculture and construction, he said.

There’s potential for further job losses, Schau said, but the food production, power generation industry and medical equipment manufacturing sector will help stabilize the area economy, “These are things people are gonna have to buy,” he said. Of the non-farm jobs lost last month, 600 were in the construction sector, which had supported 7,000 workers in October. Previously planned public and private capital projects have been completed and construction projects as there are fewer jobs to be had.

Manufacturing jobs also were down over the month by 500 as food processors slowed production in the fourth quarter. “The third quarter has the highest employment for the industry as it has to digest the late-season wine, potato and apple harvests,” Schau said. Like construction, food manufacturing had its best year in 2007, and during the first two quarters of 2008 it was up 5.2 percent over the same time the previous year, he said.

Meanwhile, retail trade saw an increase of 400 seasonal jobs in November, bringing the total jobs there to 12,000, up 200 from November 2007. Jobs in the financial services sector and wholesale trade, transportation and warehousing remained mostly flat. About 100 positions were added in the food services industry in November, and the sector gained about 400 jobs over the year.

Although the number of workers in the Tri-Cities labor force declined from 126,470 in October to 124,220 in November, that still was up by 4,450 workers compared with November 2007, Schau said. Candice Bluechel, business services outreach manager at WorkSource Columbia Basin, said the loss of 3,100 agricultural jobs in November led to a rush of job seekers at WorkSource.

There are about 65 job openings listed currently at WorkSource, Bluechel said. In Washington, the services sector jobs that comprise about 68 percent of all state jobs have been a saving grace, said Mary Ayala, chief economist for the state Employment Security Department. Those higher paying jobs haven’t been caught in the cyclical downward trend, she said.

But Ayala said an estimated 222,551 people are looking for work in the state and about 22,700 non-agricultural jobs were lost in November. “Just as we saw with the 2002 recession, Washington’s economy held up longer than most of the nation, but we’re quickly catching up now,” said Employment Security Commissioner Karen Lee.

Total non-agricultural jobs in Washington in November were down 22,400 over the same time in 2007, a 0.8 percent decrease. nationally, jobs declined by 1.4 percent over the past year.