The Orange County unemployment rate will keep falling to 3.9% in 2023 while the number of jobs will rise with the COVID-19 crisis starting to taper off, economists at California State University, Fullerton forecast.
Employment in both the state and Orange County “is tightly tethered to the virus outlook, following closely the trends of the disease,” according to economists led by Anil Puri, director of CSUF’s Woods Center for Economic Analysis and Forecasting.
They see OC jobless falling to 5.9% by the end of this year and 4.1% next year, from 8.8% in 2020. The projected 2023 rate will still be well above the pre-pandemic level of 2.8%.
The CSUF economists also said in their 2022 Economic Forecast released today:
–The U.S. economy is expected to show 5.6% expansion this year, after shrinking 3.4% in 2020.
–OC housing affordability is an “enduring issue” with 20.8% of single-family homes costing more than $1 million.
–Inflation is expected to be a “major factor in the near-term evolution of the county’s economy” and the “inflation bout will likely persist longer than the current consensus assumes.”
