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California job growth outpaces U.S., and Silicon Valley leads the way

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California is recovering -- job growth here outpaced the national average over the last year, according to a UCLA study.

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Scott Bridges[1]
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.[2]  |  Twitter[3]

California is on the comeback trail, and Silicon Valley may be leading the way. Job growth in the Golden State has outpaced the national average over the last year, a study released Thursday found.

The quarterly UCLA Anderson Forecast indicates that California is rebounding economically and will likely continue to recover.

Economists with UCLA’s Anderson School of Management found that Silicon Valley has displayed the highest rate of job growth statewide, with 4 percent growth — more than double the national average, according to the Los Angeles Times.[4]

Southern California also is outdistancing the national average, as the employment numbers indicate in Los Angeles, the Inland Empire, Ventura County and Orange County.

Not everyone is recovering, however. A few regions trail the national average: The East Bay, the San Joaquin Valley and counties near the Oregon border experienced slower job growth than the U.S. average, the report found.

“California really is bucking the trend of what’s happening in the rest of the U.S.,” Jerry Nickelsburg[5] told the Times. Nickelsburg is a senior economist with the UCLA Anderson Forecast who focuses on state economic trends.

The study also projected a continuing decline in California’s unemployment rate over the next two years. The 7.7 percent unemployment rate this year is expected to drop to a healthier 5.9 percent in 2016.

“We have people coming into the labor force,” Nickelsburg said, “hundreds of thousands of them since the recession."

Scott Bridges has covered the Los Angeles scene for over ten years as a journalist and food critic. Follow him on the Huffington Post[6]

References

  1. ^ Scott Bridges (feeds.bizjournals.com)
  2. ^ This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (feeds.bizjournals.com)
  3. ^ Twitter (twitter.com)
  4. ^ according to the Los Angeles Times. (www.latimes.com)
  5. ^ Jerry Nickelsburg (feeds.bizjournals.com)
  6. ^ the Huffington Post (www.huffingtonpost.com)
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