Central New York consumers grew wary of opening their wallets in the second quarter of 2012, according to an index from the Siena (College) Research Institute (SRI) that showed declining willingness to spend in the region.

Overall consumer confidence in the Syracuse metropolitan statistical area (MSA) dropped 2.7 points to 68.6. The area ranked seventh in confidence out of nine MSAs in New York State.

It remained below the SRI index’s break-even point, which is just above 76. The break-even point is the reading at which consumers express an equal amount of optimism and pessimism. Index results above the point indicate mostly optimistic consumers, while results below the point reflect prevalent pessimism.

The Binghamton and Utica MSAs joined Syracuse in losing consumer confidence. Overall confidence slipped 0.1 points in Binghamton to 65.8, and it tumbled 4.9 points in Utica to 63.4. Binghamton ranked eighth in the state in consumer confidence. Utica ranked ninth.

Only one other MSA in New York State lost overall confidence. New York City’s consumer confidence fell 2.2 points to 79.3. However, the city still managed to maintain the top confidence level in the state.

The five remaining metropolitan areas were all home to increasing overall confidence. That leaves quarter-to-quarter results for the state as a whole looking like a mixed bag, according to Douglas Lonnstrom, professor of statistics and finance at Siena College and SRI founding director.

“It’s kind of like we’re moving laterally here,” he says. “And I don’t see anything in the infrastructure that’s going to cause us to dramatically go up or down. We just seem to be drifting along right here.”

Albany hosted the state’s largest increase in overall consumer confidence, 3.4 points to 78.7. Meanwhile, confidence climbed by 1.4 points in both Buffalo and the Mid-Hudson region. It moved up to 72.2 points in Buffalo and 70.2 in the Mid-Hudson MSA.

Overall confidence crept up 1.1 points in Rochester to 78.7. It increased 0.4 points in Long Island to 73.5.

While Syracuse, Binghamton, and Utica lagged behind the rest of the state in quarter-to-quarter comparisons, all nine of New York’s MSAs have experienced confidence gains from a year ago, Lonnstrom says.

“Some of them are modest, and Syracuse is one of those — up about 7 percent from a year ago,” he says. “Some are up quite a bit. Binghamton is up 20 percent.”

In Utica, consumer confidence has increased by 8 percent since the second quarter of 2011, the SRI index shows.

SRI develops the quarterly confidence indexes by surveying consumers over the age of 18 in random telephone calls. Each MSA index is based on more than 400 respondents, with the exception of the indexes for New York City and Long Island. SRI calculates those quarterly indexes using averages of its monthly consumer-confidence surveys.

Current and future confidence

Syracuse consumers didn’t just lose overall confidence between the first and second quarters of 2012. They also expressed a declining willingness to spend under current conditions and in the future.

The MSA’s current confidence skidded 5 points to 71.6. Its future confidence edged down 1.2 points to 66.7.

In Utica, current confidence descended 5.7 points to 68.2. Future confidence dipped 4.4 points to 60.3.

Current consumer confidence increased in Binghamton by 1.9 points to 71.3. But future confidence ticked down 1.4 points to 62.3.

Buying plans

SRI also surveyed consumers in the state’s nine metropolitan areas about their plans for making major purchases in five different categories. The institute asked if consumers plan to buy a car or truck, a computer, furniture, a home, or a major home improvement in the next six months.

The portion of consumers planning to make major purchases decreased in 30 of the 45 possible categories across the state. It increased in 14 categories and stayed the same in one.

Consumers in the Syracuse MSA cut back on plans to purchase cars and trucks, computers, and furniture. They boosted plans to buy homes and major home improvements.

“[In] Syracuse, you were kind of mixed, but still a little bit on the low side,” Lonnstrom says.

SRI’s survey found that 11.9 percent of Syracuse–area consumers plan to buy a car or truck, down 2 points from the first quarter of 2012. The reading is also lower than the survey’s historical average of 12.8 percent.

Only 9.2 percent of the region’s consumers plan to buy a computer, a drop of 2.6 points from the previous quarter and below the historical average of 10.5 percent. And 11.9 percent of consumers expect to buy furniture, down 3.2 points from last quarter and under the survey’s 14.8 percent historical average.

The news was better for Central New York’s housing market, as 3.4 percent of consumers planned to buy homes, up 0.6 points from the first quarter of 2012. That was slightly below the survey’s historical average of 3.6 percent.

Major home improvements also received a boost, with 16.8 percent of consumers planning to make purchases in that category. That’s up 1.3 points from last quarter but still less than the survey’s historical average of 19.5 percent.    

Employers such as higher-education institutions and nonprofit research entities were responsible for more than a quarter of H-1B visa requests in the Syracuse metropolitan area in 2010-2011, a new report from the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program found.

Brookings released the report, titled “The Search for Skills: Demand for H-1B Immigrant Workers in U.S. Metropolitan Areas,” on July 18. H-1B visas allow employers to hire skilled foreign workers for temporary employment in specialized occupations.

Brookings did not analyze the number of visas that were granted by the federal government, according to Jill Wilson, a senior research analyst at Brookings’ Metropolitan Policy Program and co-author of the report. Its report focused on demand, she says.

“This is visa requests from employers, not the number granted,” Wilson says. 

In Syracuse, employers such as colleges and universities, which are designated “uncapped” employers, made 25.5 percent of all requests for H-1B visas on average in 2010 and 2011. That means the region had the 18th highest portion of uncapped-employer visa requests out of 106 areas Brookings examined. Nationally, 10 percent of requests originate from such employers, the institution estimated.

The “uncapped” designation stems from federal regulations on the number of H-1B visas that can be granted each fiscal year. Uncapped employers — which include higher-education institutions or related nonprofit entities, nonprofit research entities, and governmental research entities — are not subject to caps on the number of visas that can be granted nationwide.

Private firms are bound by those caps and are referred to as “capped” employers. Currently, the government will only grant a total of 85,000 H-1B visas in a year to all the capped employers in the country.

Total requests for H-1B visas in 2010-2011 averaged 335 in the Syracuse area, according to Brookings. The region ranked 85th in requests in the report.

The top H-1B-requesting area was New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, where employers asked for 52,921 of the visas. But H-1B demand was not limited to the largest metropolitan areas like New York City, Wilson says. 

“One surprise of this report was that smaller metropolitan areas are demanding these H-1B workers,” she says. “We actually found that every metropolitan area of the 366 in the United States requested at least one H-1B visa.”

However, Brookings only analyzed regions that made 250 or more H-1B requests. So its report included Syracuse but not metropolitan areas like Binghamton or Utica.

In Syracuse, employers requested 119 visas for computer occupations, the most of any occupation. They requested 68 visas for health diagnosing and treating practitioners, 38 for engineers, and 32 for postsecondary teachers.

The institution also looked at demand intensity, or the number of H-1B visas requested per 1,000 workers in each metropolitan area. Syracuse registered a demand intensity of 1.1, which was 91st out of the 106 areas Brookings examined. The national average was 2.4.

Additionally, Brookings broke down the number of H-1B visa requests for jobs in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. Syracuse employers made 55.1 percent of their H-1B visa requests for jobs in those fields, 85th out of the regions covered in the report.

Another analysis Brookings performed shed light on government funding for programs that are designed to alleviate U.S. workers’ skill shortages. The institution examined the distribution of revenue generated by employers’ H-1B visa fees — fees that range from $1,575 to $4,325 per application, depending on the type of employer.

“Our report is the first time anyone’s layered the data this way to look at where the fees have been awarded compared to where the demand for H-1Bs would be,” Wilson says.

The Syracuse region pulled in more grant money from H-1B visa-funded programs than its demand for the visas would suggest. It received $1.2 million in grant funding, good for 62nd out of the regions Brookings reviewed. In dollars per capita, Syracuse received $2.26, which was 54th in the report.

Only 70 of the 106 metropolitan areas Brookings sampled received grant funding from H-1B programs in 2010-2011. 

The Brookings report recommended adapting to regional shifts in H-1B visa demand by forming an independent standing commission that would recommend immigration-policy changes. It also suggested aiming programs funded by H-1B visa fees at metropolitan areas that have a high demand for H-1B workers.

That doesn’t necessarily mean the Syracuse area should lose all of its funding for grant programs coming from H-1B visa fees, according to Wilson. Programs that help put students through STEM training in college in one region can help boost work-force skills in another region, she says.

“We would argue that the alignment there is not as necessary,” she says. “Someone who is in school in Syracuse may not stay there.”