My New Blog

A recent federal study contends that the high unemployment rate is the underlying cause of many of the current crises, including the housing crisis. I would bet that those Feddies just might be on to something, but wasn't it the housing crisis that led to economic collapse, that then led to unemployment? I think this is a circular argument that one leads to the other and vice versa, but there is no doubt that they are closely linked, and one either hurts or heals the other, depending on the circumstance. 

Close to home here in  Orange County, unemployment is still running at about 12%, and according to all the forecasts coming out of Cal State Fullerton, Cal State Long Beach, Chapman University, and UCLA, Orange County when taking the median of these forecasts, is set to add 19,000 jobs in 2011 and more than 100,000 over the next 3 years. In other words, these folks who profess to expertise in reading the economic crystal ball expect slow growth through the end of year 2011 but they expect it to pick up in 2012 and even more in 2013. So by the end of 2013 Orange County, California will still be significantly below (-64,000) the peak employment of 2006. In other words it will be 7 years, and we will still not be back to our former self. If their predictions hold true, 2015 will put us back to about 2006 levels of employment. Best case scenario we are on a 9 year recovery track just to break even again. Ouch. At least we are back on track, that's something.