California Employment Numbers Head Up Slowly

Job creation in California should grow in the first quarter of 2005 but not as quickly as it did in the last half of 2004.

“We’re just saying the pace is going to be slightly slower than last year,” said Esmael Adibi, director of the Anderson Center for Economic Research at Chapman University in Orange, Calif., which issued a study on Feb. 7 regarding California’s employment growth.

The study showed that California’s Index of Leading Employment Indicators dropped to 119.2 during the reporting period, down from 123 in the fourth quarter of 2004.

Anything higher than 100 shows positive job growth, but the indictor’s decline points to a slowdown in job creation.

The index is made up of four components: real exports, the Standard & Poor’s 500, the state’s local construction spending and the lagged values of the country’s real gross domestic product (GDP).

All four components are in positive territory but are seeing slower growth, according to the study. California’s construction spending increased by 10 percent, compared with a 10.5 percent rise in the fourth quarter of 2004. Year-over-year growth in real GDP showed a 3.7 percent increase, compared with a 4 percent rise in the fourth quarter. The year-over-year percentage change in real exports was 4.1 percent, compared with 9.4 percent in the last quarter. And at the end of the fourth quarter of 2004, the S&P 500 increased 9 percent versus 11.9 percent at the end of the third quarter. —Deborah Belgum