Strong Job Growth to Continue, UCLA Says

UCLA economists see job growth in California continuing to outpace the nation through the rest of the decade, even as the strong expansion in high-technology electronics and motion pictures slows somewhat. The latest quarterly report by the UCLA-Anderson Business Forecasting Project, to be released today, says the state’s nonfarm payrolls will grow 3.1% next year, up from 2.8% in 1996. The report also predicts that the state’s personal income will rise faster than the nation’s and that its jobless rate will narrow to within half a point of the U.S. rate by 1999. Residential construction, which has lagged, will also improve next year, with the number of new permits issued climbing to 122,000 from less than 100,000 in each of the last five years.