L.A.’s economic recovery is under way and will pick up steam next year, according to a quarterly forecast from the UCLA Anderson School of Management.

Personal income growth, taxable retail sales and residential building permits are all expected to turn positive for 2010, economist Julia Thornton Snider said in the forecast scheduled for release Tuesday. The closely watched non-farm payroll employment figures are expected to bottom out in 2010 and increase by about 2 percent in 2011.

In the report, titled “Emerging from Quicksand,” Snider wrote that a rebound in exports and imports and a gradual upturn in the local housing market are the main drivers of the nascent recovery.

“Between L.A.’s air-and seaports and its housing market, the evidence is building that a recovery is under way,” Snider said. “We can feel more confident that the Great Recession has ended.”

Exports started increasing in the second half of 2009, while imports have jumped this year. Snider said as trade takes off, it creates jobs in L.A.’s trade-related industries, which in turn builds demand for local goods and services.

Snider said that the local housing market is finally starting to turn. Home builders are taking out more permits, foreclosures have been heading down for several months and prices and sales are “inching upward.”

But, Snider cautioned, the housing recovery is still very fragile and could be knocked back again as federal incentives end. And if global markets slow or sink back into recession, imports and exports could once again fall. Finally, layoffs from state and local government payrolls could offset gains in other sectors.