...fell 0.4 percent, and a falling stock market are the foundations upon which we must build a state economic forecast. While state economies are not immune from these forces, they may or may not mirror those trends based upon their own economic structures and special circumstances. For that reason, it is important to begin our forecast with some discussion of the structure of the Mississippi economy and the lingering impact of Hurricane Katrina.

Changing Structure of the Mississippi Economy

Historically, the Mississippi economy has had a relatively large manufacturing sector. In 1997, manufacturing employment accounted for 21.0 percent of total nonfarm employment in the state, compared to 14.4 percent for the U.S. By 2007 (November), that share had fallen to 14.6 percent for Mississippi and 10.0 percent for the U.S. This decline in the relative importance of the manufacturing sector in Mississippi constitutes the biggest shift among all the sectors in the state's economy.

The decline in overall manufacturing employment Mississippi followed national trends, but Mississippi's nondurable goods sector showed a far larger relative drop compared to the rate for the U.S. Using 1997 as a base, nondurable goods employment in Mississippi fell to 71.0 percent of the 1997 level, while for the U.S. the comparable decline was 81.0 percent.

A total of 56,200 manufacturing jobs were lost between January 1997 and November 2007, almost 25.0...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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