The recession may be over, but employers and workers in California won’t feel any recovery this year, according to the latest quarterly UCLA Anderson Forecast released Wednesday.
California employers will shed another 90,000 jobs in 2010, on top of the million-plus jobs lost during the recession, as local governments continue to downsize. Positive employment growth is not expected to return until 2011, according to the forecast.
Meanwhile, the unemployment rate is expected to drop slightly from the current 12.5 percent, but still average about 12 percent for all of 2010. The rate is expected to remain in double digits until 2012.
“The outlook for the balance of 2010 is for little or no growth in the state,” said UCLA Anderson Senior Economist Jerry Nickelsburg.
Personal income, a measure of overall growth of the economy, is forecast to grow a meager 1.3 percent in 2010. While that’s better than the negative rates of 2008 and 2009, it’s not robust enough to drive an expansion in the job base. That won’t happen until next year, when the forecast pegs personal income growth at 3.7 percent.
