State Getting Fitter, but Lower Half Still Sags : Economy: One study says California recovery is stronger than thought; another says Southland has a self-esteem problem.

Adding more evidence that California’s economic recovery is gathering steam, a new study predicts that the state will have added 250,000 to 300,000 net new jobs in 1994--an indication of a much stronger rebound than previously anticipated.

“The signs of economic recovery are unmistakable,” said Stephen Levy, director of the Palo Alto-based Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy, which released a study Monday showing that more than 150,000 of the state’s new jobs in 1994 have been in high-wage, non-manufacturing industries.

But a separate report to be released today contends that Southern California has developed a giant inferiority complex about its economic prospects and that, if the region is to prosper, public confidence in the future must be restored.

That means learning to recognize and exploit the area’s natural advantages, including its diverse and youthful population, its strong entrepreneurial spirit, its unusually deep base of business service providers, a host of creative industries, a work-oriented immigrant community and “the best strategic trade location in North America,” according to the study by the Center for the New West, a nonprofit think tank based in Denver.

“The defense cuts didn’t kill the economy,” Levy said, adding that the recovery has been much stronger than indicated by the monthly job estimates published by the California Employment Development Department.

“This recovery, far from being a cyclical thing where people spend more . . . is a recovery led by the industries of the future,” which are foreign trade, high technology, tourism and entertainment, and professional services, he said.

California’s recovery will continue in 1995 if the U.S. economy continues to grow, the report says, with possible gains of 200,000 to 300,000 jobs, and an increase of 5% or more in income and spending.

As this recovery spreads to Southern California, the challenge is to restore faith in the region’s future and to exploit the area’s many advantages, according to the report by the Center for the New West, titled “The Next Act: Southern California’s New Economy.”

“You’ve got to play the hand that God gave you, and it’s not a bad hand. It’s a very good hand,” said Joel Kotkin, the report’s author, who is senior fellow at the Center for the New West and international fellow at Pepperdine University’s School of Business.