For the third month in a row, Fort Smith remained on top of the Arkansas Tech Business Index, according to data compiled for May.
Eleven of the 16 cities measured on the index, which offers a snapshot of the state’s economy, improved their ratings from April. West Memphis saw the biggest spike, 2.91 points.
“[West Memphis’] home sales were strong,” Marc Fusaro, associate professor of economics at Arkansas Tech University and ATBI developer, said. “In addition to more houses being sold than usual in West Memphis, larger houses were sold in May. The average home sale price rose from $92,000 in April to over $138,000 in May.”
Fort Smith saw a considerable jump in May, 2.77 points, to 109.70. Seven other cities — Bentonville, Springdale, Rogers, Fayetteville, Conway, Jonesboro and Searcy — were also above 100.
The index takes into effect the labor, housing market, construction and retail sales indices to create a rating based on 100. A city above 100 is currently performing better than the state average between 2009 and present.
Little Rock was down 0.59 points from April to 98.48 in May.
Rogers Leads Labor Force
Fueled by an unemployment rate well below the state and national averages for the month, Rogers led the labor force index with a 107.62 rating.
According to unseasonably adjusted numbers, Rogers had an unemployment rate of 4.7 percent with a labor force of 28,144.
It was followed by North Little Rock (107.06), Springdale (105.13), Bentonville (104.8) and Searcy (104.47). North Little Rock and Searcy were the only of the top five with an unemployment rate above 5 percent, coming in at 6.1 percent and 7.8 percent, respectively.
Fort Smith, which had the highest overall index rating, was sixth in the labor force with a 102.11 rating. Hot Springs (100.45) was the only other city above 100 in the index.
West Memphis (93.42) had the lowest index rating. The eastern Arkansas city had an unemployment rate of 10.1 percent in May.
Fayetteville (94.17), Conway (94.85), Pine Bluff (96.15) and Russellville (96.6) were among the five cities with the lowest rating in the index.
Pine Bluff, like West Memphis, had an unemployment rate of 10.1 percent. Russellville’s was 6.6 percent. Both Fayetteville, 5.3 percent, and Conway, 5.9 percent, were below the national and state averages.
Little Rock had the largest labor force with 93,329. El Dorado had the smallest with 7,425.
Fort Smith Tops Housing Index
The top city in the overall index edged out Jonesboro by less than a point to also take the top spot in the housing and real estate index.
Fort Smith had a rating of 112.03 to beat Jonesboro at 111.23.
Fort Smith is part of Sebastian County which had 143 homes sold in May. The county’s market valuation was more than $17.3 million and an average home price of $121,563.
The top two cities were followed by Hot Springs (109.45), Conway (107.12) and Springdale (106.03).
North Little Rock (78) had the lowest index rating even with being in the largest housing market in the state, Pulaski County, which sold 483 units, had a market valuation of more than $98.7 million and an average home price of $204,372.
North Little Rock was followed by Pine Bluff (84.7), Texarkana (84.89), Little Rock (84.93) and El Dorado (87.31).
In all, there were ten cities above 100, including Fayetteville (105.94), Searcy (104.13), Bentonville (102.24), West Memphis (101.98) and Rogers (101.82). Russellville was below the state average at 97.76.
Little Rock Leads Construction; Fort Smith Takes Retail Sales
Pulaski County fellow cities, Little Rock and North Little Rock, bookend the ATBI’s construction index for May with Little Rock far and away the leader with a 125.19 rating.
It was more than 11 points higher than Springdale (113.82) which followed in second. It was followed by Bentonville (109.81), Jonesboro (105.14) and North Little Rock (101.52). There were only five cities rated above 100.
Rogers (86.6) was the lowest-rated city. It was followed by Searcy (90.94), Hot Springs (93.05), Fort Smith (93.35) and Russellville (93.49).
In the retail sales index, Fort Smith, again, took the top spot with a 123.71 rating.
It was followed by Fayetteville (118.47), Rogers (111.14), Little Rock (106.55) and Conway (105.6). In all, seven cities were above the state average. The top five was joined by Searcy (105.3) and Bentonville (102.8).
North Little Rock was at the bottom of the index with a 79.21 rating. It was followed by Pine Bluff (89.66), West Memphis (90.63), El Dorado (90.66) and Texarkana (91.04).
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