Perspective delivered by

Christopher Germain, AICP, EDFP

CEO, LSCP.

The Lake Superior Community Partnership (LSCP) serves many roles in the community, from fostering connections, providing business support, advocating on behalf of Marquette County businesses and organizations, celebrating new investments, and much more. One thing that may not be as well-known is the investment the LSCP makes in ensuring Marquette County businesses and communities have access to up-to-date data.

Each year, the LSCP publishes the Marquette County Data Booklet, which visualizes data on gross regional product, population, jobs, real estate transactions, projections, and more. Having an annually updated and consistent data source can help Marquette County businesses make timely business decisions and help those interested in coming into the area understand current trends and how Marquette County may fit into their investment plans. The current version, released in September, can be found at https://marquette.org/data-booklet/ . While I encourage everyone to view the data booklet directly, I’ll summarize some highlights.

While the data booklet covers the whole county – and things would certainly look different if you broke it down by local government boundaries – our overall county gross regional product (total market value of all goods and services) of $3,041,579,919 is comprised primarily of Mining, Quarrying, and Oil & Gas Extraction (23%), Government (14%), and Health Care and Social Assistance (14%). And that $3.1 billion number is the first time we’ve crossed the $3 billion mark in as far back as the data booklet goes; we’re trending in the right direction.

On the talent front, 2022 continued our employment recovery from the pandemic, adding 605 positions throughout the county (595 were added the year before). While we hadn’t reached the pre-pandemic numbers by the end of 2022, the trend continued positively. Talk to any business owner in the county, and you’ll likely hear about challenges in recruiting and retaining talent. We expect the 2023 numbers to reflect this continued recovery in future booklets, and projections through 2032 suggest we’re in line for a 12% increase in jobs, up to 31,432 positions.

Current population estimates aren’t quite as rosy, showing a loss of approximately 1,000 residents through 2030. However, in conjunction with partners like InvestUP, Innovate Marquette SmartZone, NMU, and local governments, we are all working to address the retention of current residents and attract additional residents to fill the open positions our businesses currently have available and are projected to create. These efforts include facilitating new housing, addressing childcare, expanding air service, and enhancing our ties to outdoor recreation amenities.

The data booklet also includes some basic data on real estate transactions and education levels. Real estate data shows continued increases in value though, 2022 saw a smaller number of transactions compared to 2021. Education levels remain stable from previous years, showing Marquette County, on average, holds higher levels of education than the country as a whole. We continue to be fortunate to have strong local school districts, and the impact of NMU and our career technical programming continues to be felt.

The data booklet is just the beginning of the type of data the LSCP can help businesses access. From business plan reviews to economic impact studies, our team is ready to help you make informed decisions to enhance our economic activity further. So, as always, please reach out whenever we can be of assistance.

For more information, contact the Lake Superior Community Partnership at (906) 226-6591. The Lake Superior Community Partnership (LSCP) is Marquette County’s resource for economic development, providing a wide variety of affordable and effective development services. The LSCP helps our partners make the connections that matter – between businesses, organizations, leaders and legislators, and provides a powerful legislative voice for programs and policies that strengthen our regional economy. More information on the Lake Superior Community Partnership can be found at www.marquette.org.