A sharp decrease in help-wanted advertising, combined with an increase in unemployment claims and a drop in consumer confidence, caused San Diego County’s economic indicators to fall in June, according to a report issued Friday by the University of San Diego.
The USD Burnham-Moores Center for Real Estate’s Index of Leading Economic Indicators for San Diego County fell for a second consecutive month, after reaching its highest level in almost 10 years in April.
Economists usually look for three consecutive changes in a leading index to signal a potential turning point in an economy. So for now, the outlook remains for solid growth in the local economy through the end of 2016, the report said.
While the two declines have not been large, the forecast for the early part of 2017 could be called into question depending on the result of next month’s report.
One positive is that the local economy has some momentum in terms of employment growth, with wage and salary employment up more than 37,000 in the first half or 2016 compared to the same period in 2015, the report noted.
The sectors experiencing the greatest job growth were health care, leisure and hospitality, government, administrative, support, waste services, construction and manufacturing, according to the index.
—City News Service
