UCLA: Calif. Jobless Rate To Hover Near 12 Percent, But No Recession
LOS ANGELES (CBS) — It won't get much better, but it could be a lot worse.
That's the general reaction from local economists to a report released Tuesday that predicts the unemployment rate in California will remain at 12 percent through 2012 — a report that also downplayed any suggestion that the U.S. economy is in a recession or faces such a risk.
The economic forecast from the UCLA Anderson School of Business also expects an "incipient recovery period" to follow an otherwise sluggish next 12 months or so.
This means a slight increase in California's unemployment rate over the next two quarters, "followed by a slow trajectory towards, but not reaching, single-digit unemployment the following five quarters," according to UCLA Anderson Forecast senior economist Jerry Nickelsburg.
The economy will remain particularly sluggish in inland California areas, with high unemployment expected to extend into 2017, Nickelsburg reported. Coastal communities have experienced an economic recovery that has outpaced the rest of the nation, and that could continue thanks to the skilled-labor market and advanced manufacturing, according to the report.
The problem, according to Nickelsburg, is that there apparently will not be any spillover of the positive coastal-area economic news into the inland community, meaning a widening gap between inland and coastal areas.
Labor expert Brad Kemp at Beacon Economics told KNX 1070 he agrees with the assessment but added the forecast is unlikely to change the public's perception of the jobs market.
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"I don't call it good, but I certainly wouldn't call it horrible," said Kemp. "I'd call it a lot better than the 20-something consecutive months of employment decline we had during the recession."
Despite the muted outlook, the forecast does not expect the national economy as a whole to slide back into recession.
"The Forecast economists remain steadfast in their assertion that the United States is not currently in a recession, nor is there a recession in the forecast through 2013," according to a statement accompanying the forecast.
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