The biggest economic story in central Arkansas this year is likely to be the rebuilding and widening of the Interstate 30 corridor through downtown Little Rock and North Little Rock, according to an annual economic review and outlook of trends in the area.
The review is prepared each year by Metroplan, a voluntary association of local governments that has served as the regional voice on issues affecting central Arkansas since 1955.
Construction on I-30, likely to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, may begin by 2018, the report said.
"The one-time infusion of construction dollars will boost the regional economy over the next five years, but the consequences of decisions taken will last more than 50," the report said.
In 2015, the central Arkansas economy had a pickup in growth.
By September 2015, regional jobs had reached a new high of 353,100, the report said.
Three of the top four job providers from July 2014 to July 2015 were in services, including the professional and business services sector, up 2,600 jobs; leisure and hospitality sector, up 2,000 jobs; and the education and health sector, up 1,900 jobs.
The mining and construction sector, which is composed primarily of construction jobs, was the second largest growth sector, adding 2,400 jobs.
In central Arkansas, permits for single-family construction were up about 9 percent for the first six months of 2015 while permits with multifamily construction were down about 8 percent, the report said.
"[Construction] is one of the more encouraging signs about the state of economic growth in the area," said Michael Pakko, chief economist at the Institute for Economic Advancement at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. "We're seeing especially single-family [construction] start to pick up. We're also seeing pretty strong activity in multifamily construction."
There is a possibility that sizable multifamily construction projects could break ground this year, Metroplan said.
For 2016, Metroplan projects that the local economy could offer enough new jobs to draw some of the long-term unemployed back to the workforce.
Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projections, the fastest job growth through 2022 in central Arkansas probably will be in health care fields, the report said. The two fastest growing jobs are in health care support, projected to grow by 28 percent over the next six years, and health care practitioners and technical, which is expected to grow by 22 percent.
The third largest growth segment will be in computer and mathematical jobs, which should grow by 18 percent, the report said.
Metroplan's projection is not out of line, said John Shelnutt, administrator of economic analysis and tax research for the state's Department of Finance and Administration.
"Some of that growth is a forward projection of past experience," Shelnutt said. "These are high-growth sectors anyway and they also tend to be more stable through economic cycles. So it tends to rack up over a multi-year period like this to produce these kinds of numbers."
The growth in computer and mathematical jobs depends on several things, Shelnutt said. One is whether jobs could be pulled out of the area to places like Dallas or other markets, Shelnutt said.
"That [projection] is probably based on a national trend applied to Arkansas," Shelnutt said.
Business on 01/05/2016