Orange County

What’s Next? What has been the cost of Orange County’s bankruptcy? Is manufacturing in the county becoming extinct? Those are some of the questions that will be addressed at Cal State Fullerton’s annual economic forecast, to be issued Tuesday. The predictions for 1996 for Orange County and Southern California will be made by Anil K. Puri, director of the Institute for Economic and Environmental Studies at the university, and Alison Lynn Reaser, chief economist for First Interstate Bancorp. Recent indicators have suggested that the county is beginning to recover from its long economic slump. Despite layoffs stemming from the county government’s bankruptcy, for example, county employers have added 5,300 jobs to their payrolls since September, 1994, and the jobless count last month dropped to its lowest level since March, according to state labor officials. Chapman University also reported last week that production increased in all areas of manufacturing in the third quarter and that county manufacturers are optimistic about the future.