Here is an article from the Arizona Republic. It gives everyone, no matter where they live, something to consider. The full article can be found here.

Businesses find profits during slump

Betty Beard
The Arizona Republic
Mar. 7, 2008

Trash-haulers and cleaners. Credit counselors, bankruptcy attorneys and support staff. Property managers.

Some businesses have taken off as the housing market slumped. Then there are the evergreen professions, immune to economic downturns. Health-care workers, security personnel, utility professionals and educators.

And because we all like an escape from the bad news, entertainment careers have staying power in tough times as well.

In the Arizona economy, not every sector is down. In January the state had 16,800 more non-farm jobs than in January 2007. And Arizona’s unemployment rate remains at 4.3 percent, considered nearly full employment.

… Full-service Gilbert locksmith Laura Cordovano said she has noticed an uptick.

“We do constable meets where the people are evicted. We will meet them there with the constable. The constable reads the papers, and the people are vacated, and we are right there to change the lock,” she said.

When the housing market went bust, a number of real-estate agents jumped into the foreclosure market.

Ryan Rosscup is a Realtor who handles mostly Gilbert-area properties for a bank. He said it is now more than one-half of his business and “is probably keeping me afloat.” That business is subsiding, he said, because regular housing sales are rising, he said.

Counselors and lenders

…the nonprofit Consumer Credit Counseling Services has seen a 41 percent increase in clients needing counseling on housing issues this year in the Phoenix area alone. The agency, a division of Money Management International of Houston, saw 1,485 of those clients in January and February, compared with 887 in those two months in 2007, said Tanisha Warner, a spokesperson.Michelle Evard, a Phoenix financial planner, also has seen her business pick up, mostly from nervous clients wondering how their retirement accounts and portfolios are doing.

“A lot more people are paying more attention to how they are allocated. I am hearing from clients I haven’t heard from in years,” she said.

Recession-resistant fields

Some business sectors have shown themselves to be fairly recession-proof over time, including health care and hospitals, discount stores, utilities, fast-food restaurants, movie theaters and professional sports teams.

In addition, every downturn is different, and today’s global economy offers opportunities that weren’t available in the past, economists point out.

Mining is doing well because of a rising global demand for minerals, and last year added about 1,700 jobs in Arizona. The weak dollar could boost the number of foreign tourists and already has prompted a boom in Canadian visitors and home buyers.

Brian Cary, an economist with Salt River Project, said, “So far we have seen commercial real estate hold up pretty well. That’s in pretty stark contrast to where we were the last time we had a real-estate recession in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the residential segment held up pretty well and the commercial segment took a beating.”

Generally, businesses that do the best during downturns are the ones that provide goods and services that consumers can’t postpone, such as food, medical services, utilities and educational services, said economist Elliott Pollack. Companies that sell goods such as cars and trucks, appliances and furniture – purchases that often can be postponed -typically do the worst.

“People will save a little on food, but they will probably eat out less and eat home more. They will buy generic brands. But they are really not going to cut down a lot of food, at least not in our society,” he said.

Medical careers

The most recession-proof field of all, economists agree, is the medical field.

…Marshall Vest, a University of Arizona economist, said “Health care continues to see shortages of doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and medical technicians. That’s just one industry that is not affected by business cycles. It continues to grow year after year. Employment increases something like five percent a year, year after year.” …

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