October 24, 2003

Forecast: Region faces continued job losses through summer

Full report (pdf)

Job losses in the Sacramento Region are likely to continue through next summer as ongoing state budget troubles and manufacturing layoffs take their toll, according to the quarterly CSUS Forecast from the California Institute for County Government at California State University, Sacramento.

The forecast predicts the negative trend will continue into next year, with a small improvement in the spring.

Private sector gains, the forecast says, should lift the region into positive job growth by next August or September.

Recently released Employment Development Department figures show job growth in the region was down 0.99 percent in September, signaling the region’s first sustained period of job losses since the early 1990s. The state and nation as a whole continue to lose jobs as well, but not at the same rate. The EDD reports state job growth is down 0.33 percent, and the national job decline is 0.34 percent.

Just last September, Sacramento was dodging the big job losses plaguing the rest of the state. Job growth in the region at the time was 2 percent.

But researchers with the forecast say government employment is no longer acting as a cushion for the region, as it traditionally has. More than half of the jobs lost recently were in government, and that trend will likely continue, the forecast says.

The quarterly CSUS Forecast of the region's job outlook uses an econometric model of the six-county Capital Region with more than two dozen variables. It was developed by the California Institute for County Government with support from the CSUS Regional Development Initiative. CSUS economics professor Suzanne O'Keefe and Robert Fountain, special assistant for regional development at CSUS, served as project advisors. Shawn Blosser of Databasix provided assistance with model development and programming.

More information is available from Matthew Newman, director of the California Institute for County Government, at (916) 324-0796, or at the institute’s website at www.cicg.org. Additional media assistance is available by contacting CSUS public affairs at (916) 278-6156.

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