Jobs Forecast Shows Improvement in California
Things are looking up for more jobs in California.
The pace of job creation should expand during the fourth quarter of this year.
That prediction was made by the A. Anderson Center for Economic Research at Chapman University in Orange, Calif., which released its California Index of Leading Employment Indicator report on Nov. 8.
“It means California is finally going to see some year-over-year job growth,” said Esmael Adibi, director of the Anderson Center. “There has to be more hiring.”
Researchers took into consideration movement in the value of real gross domestic product, real exports, the Standard & Poor 500 and the state’s total construction spending. They use a weighted average of changes in these variables to create the California Index of Leading Employment.
Three of the four indicators saw positive growth in the third quarter. The year-over-year change in GDP was up 3.1 percent, real exports grew by 12.2 percent and the S&P 500 was higher, at an annualized rate of 7.9 percent in the third quarter.
The only indicator lagging right now is construction spending in California, which declined 30.1 percent in the third quarter.
This all pushed the California Index of Leading Employment to move from 99.3 in the third quarter of 2010 to 101.1 in the fourth quarter. Any value above 100 indicates job growth. The index has been below 100 since the second quarter of 2008.—Deborah Belgum
