Economist: Sonoma County has recovered from recession

Sonoma County employment levels have now fully recovered from the recession and the coming year looks bright for the local economy, a UCLA economist said Thursday morning at the annual State of the County conference.

While long-term unemployment is still high nationwide, the U.S. economy is slowly moving toward full employment, said Jerry Nickelsburg, senior economist for the UCLA Anderson Forecast.

In Sonoma County, economic indicators such as job growth and low unemployment are very positive, he said. This is primarily due to county’s ability to transform itself into a 21st Century economy after the Great Recession.

Coastal counties in California and only a handful of states in the United States have been able to do that, Nickelsburg said. States that have successfully come out of the recession have economies that are driven by technology or energy industries, not low taxes, lax regulation or right to work laws, he said.

“That’s really the formula for the future,” Nickelsburg said. “That’s a formula that Sonoma County has really been able to embody.”

That optimism of the local economy was echoed by county officials and economic experts.

According to the Sonoma County Economic Development Board’s economic indicators report for 2015, annual job growth was 1.1 percent through August, helping to drive the county’s unemployment rate down to 5.1 percent by November, well below the state and national average.

Nickelsburg said the unemployment rate in Sonoma County could drop to 4 percent in the next two years.

The county had the fourth-highest number of businesses among comparable counties, indicating strong economic activity.

Tourism, a critical sector in Sonoma County, is also displaying strength. The transit occupancy tax increased $1.14 million in the past year while hotel occupancy rates rose 6.2 percent. Tourism now accounts for 10 percent of the county’s jobs and brought in $100 million in tax revenue, said Supervisor Susan Gorin, chairwoman of the Board of Supervisors.

Gorin said Nickelsburg’s positive forecast – demonstrated in numerous PowerPoint charts showing continued growth – was reassuring, and reaffirmed what the county was seeing.

“I loved seeing those lines,” said Gorin after the state of the county breakfast meeting.

During her keynote speech, Gorin pointed out during that the recovering was not occurring evenly, and that the local economy was increasingly “bifurcated,” with certain communities still struggling.

“We need to work differently to think about how to improve the lives and wages of those folks who are working so hard in our economy to support their families, often working more than one job,” Gorin told a reporter after the meeting.

The annual conference, held at the DoubleTree Hotel in Rohnert Park, highlights key opportunities, challenges and initiatives facing Sonoma County in the coming year.

Check back later today for more details from the conference.