2022 Economic Census yields saddening results

The 2022 Economic Census numbers officially released yesterday shows a downward shift in establishments and revenue when compared to the numbers in 2017.

Yesterday, Economic Census Assistant Survey director staff chief Bobby Nusz and Economic Census assistant survey director Michael Sprung officially presented the 2022 Economic Census report to the media.

Although not a complete shock due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2022 Census report yielded saddening results as it showed a massive decrease in revenue, number of establishments in the CNMI, and more when compared to data from 2017.

“We’ve seen a decline in our four basic data items for the CNMI since 2017; establishments, sales, payroll, and employment. Compared to 2017, each one has decreased by double digits,” said Nusz.

The largest decrease seen, according to the 2022 Census report, was in revenue which went down a whopping 51%.

“Particularly revenue (or sales) when you add up all the sectors of the economy, it was $1.7 billion which is a 51% decrease from 2017 at $3.6 billion,” he said.

As number of establishments, when compared to 2017, there was 12.6% decrease with 1,523 establishments in 2022 and 1,742 back in 2017.

As for employment, employment went down 36% from 2017 with 14,488 employed in 2022 and 22,652 employed in 2017.

Nusz said this downward trend could be attributed to the downfall of the casino industry in the CNMI.

“We’ve seen a big change in Sector 71, which includes the gambling industry, which is driving these decreases we think. We are also seeing lingering impacts of the pandemic on tourism, particularly in the hotel and retail sectors,” he said.

Sprung shared that based on the Census data from Guam, Guam is experiencing similar issues in the tourism industry, but because of the military activity on Guam, the impact isn’t seen as much in Guam as in the CNMI.

In related news, for 2022, Nusz said they saw an increase in electronic reporting by businesses.

“So, for businesses with only one physical location, we allow them report on either paper or electronic, in 2017 41% of these business reported electronically while the rest used paper. For 2022, 93.1% chose to report electronically. We are thinking we might no longer need to use the paper questionnaires,” he said.