Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions). Our first question comes from Michael Salinsky from RBC.
Michael Salinsky - RBC
Good morning, guys. Just given what you are seeing with the moderation right now and job growth across your markets and your experience in the Southeast markets, Eric, what is your gut feeling when conditions begin to improve? When do we start to pull out of this?
Eric Bolton
Mike, from our perspective, I think it is going to be late spring, summer of next year. I think mid-year next year, we start to see things pull out a little bit. We don't have the pressure from any sort of supply issues. I think it really is just the economy needs to get some traction and we need to get job growth back to where it was.
Interestingly, the variable that obviously we look at that really I think is the one that is concerning us right now is traffic. And, I am going to turn it over to Tom. I'll let Tom to give you a little perspective on where we are seeing the traffic issues and why we think that things are going to get back on track mid-year next year. Tom?
Tom Grimes
All right, thanks Eric, and Mike, good morning. 70% of our traffic drop is really just tied to three areas which are Florida, Columbus, Georgia and Atlanta. And just sort of picking them off one by one, Florida, in general, no new press there. I will tell you Jacksonville has weakened a little bit materially with weakness in the financial sector hitting a little bit. They have had some job layoffs that sort of picked up around the second quarter, and they have got a little bit of new supply, but when you drop 7,000 jobs, any new supply isn't that helpful.
In Columbus, we have seen a fallback on traffic, but that is sort of a pleasant story. Columbus has tightened up. We're advertising less, driving less traffic. It is holding up pretty well. And Atlanta is another place where job growth, if you just look at it, 70 basis point increases in job growth doesn't seem that bad, but it has moderated, its growth rate is cutting about in half.
So it is still significantly over the national average, but we have seen some slowdown there a bit. The July numbers are encouraging. They have bounced back a bit, but I don't think we want to rally behind July and say job growth is back. Just our traffic picked up a little bit more along the lines of what we would expect.
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