Puerto Rico’s Economic Activity Index (EAI) was recently published by The Economic Development Bank (EDB). Said report showed that the index for August 2022 was at 124.3, which compared to August 2021, shows a 1.5% increase. When compared to July 2022’s Economic Activity Index however, August shows an increase of 0.1%.
The Economic Activity Index is based on the activity of four major components in the Island, which are total non-farm payroll employment, electric power generation, gasoline consumption, and cement sales. Two of these four components showed increases in their respective measurements, said indicators being cement sales and total non-farm payroll employments.
The change viewed regarding the total non-farm payroll employment was a 5.4% increase, when compared to August 2021, and a 1.4% when compared at a month-over-month basis. As for cement sales performance, this indicator saw a growth of 0.8% at a year-over-year basis, and of 7.7% when compared to July 2022’s cement sales.
Electric Energy Generation on the other hand reflected a decrease of 4.9% when viewed at a year-over-year rate; and when viewed at a monthly basis, a 0.3% decrease. Finally, the case for the Gasoline consumption indicator is different, since said indicator saw a year-to-year decrease of 4.7%, but, when compared at a monthly basis, its change reflected an increase of 4.7%.
Puerto Rico’s Economic Activity Index has been accounting for the local economy’s improvement for the last eighteen months. Nevertheless, it’s important to signal out how global economic tendencies alongside the passing of Hurricane Fiona through the Island might show their effects in our economic activity index throughout the following months.
