A jolly Christmas in Indiana.

A Jolly Christmas in Indiana 

At this writing, the usual surge in Christmas sales following Thanksgiving is just beginning. The prospects of holiday purchases for Indiana retail merchants appears to be mixed and to depend importantly on the location.

A clue to the prospects statewide may have been sounded by the 3.0 percent decrease in total Indiana retail sales in September, compared with August, although the state volume was still well above year-ago levels. Yet, a greater-than-seasonal increase in sales in the succeeding three months will have been necessary to match the December 1988 volume of $3.6 billion.

Indiana employment and payroll data do not offer much encouragement. Unemployment across the state has risen sharply beginning last July, and overtimes schedules have been cut, resulting in the state average workweek's dropping one hour to 41.2 hours in October.

Muncie, Terre Haute and Evansville, however, have shown surprising strength with both lower unemployment rates and longer workweeks in October than a year ago. In view of the fact that the Indiana workweek still averages more than 41 hours and that income recovery in the farm sector was strong in 1989, Christmas sales still could be reasonably satisfactory and a new-record volume in several areas of the state would not be impossible.

John J. Carter is director of the Bureau of Business Research at Ball State University.