Rutgers Forecast Predicts Even Slower Growth

An already weak economic recovery for New Jersey, moving forward, is now forecast to take longer and be even weaker over the long haul.

Nancy Mantell of the Rutgers Economic Advisory Service says New Jersey’s economy has weakened over the past year. She says it will take longer for the state to regain employment levels it enjoyed in 2007. Mantell says the state’s net job loss was 265,700 between January 2008 and January 2011. Educational, health and social

services was the only sector to see job growth over the full three-year period.

The economist predicts job growth will be so slow that the average number of jobs will not surpass the 2007 peak of more than 4 million until 2016. Mantell’s forecast for job growth says there will be a rate of .9 percent a year. That’s about 39-thousand jobs added annually through the year 2021.

She says economic uncertainty abroad and confusion about what Washington will come up with is also just keeping consumers from buying things. But Mantell maintains there will be economic improvement. A bright spot, low inflation. She says, “if prices we going up quickly, we’d really be in an even worse situation.”