UCLA Anderson: the California Forecast
According to UCLA Anderson Forecast senior economist Jerry Nickelsburg, the current forecast for California ”reflects a deeper and longer recession than we previously thought.”
The forecast for California is for a very weak first three quarters of 2009 and virtually no growth in the fourth quarter of this year. The economy will begin to pick up by 2010, and by the end of next year, the state’s economy will begin to grow at something resembling normal levels.
“The keys to California’s recovery are [a] recovery in U.S. consumption improving the demands for imports from Asia and the demand from California’s factories, the resumption of non-residential public works and multi-family residential construction growth, and the return of growth to the retail sector,” Nickelsburg writes.
As for the state’s unemployment situation, it is expected to get worse. The Forecast expects the unemployment rate for California to rise to 11.9 percent in the second quarter of 2010 and average 11.7 percent for the year.
”Though the California economy will be growing in 2011, it will not be generating enough jobs to drive the unemployment rate below double digits until the following year,” the report notes.