A nonpartisan group issued a report Wednesday that projects that Connecticut will continue its gradual recovery over the next four years, regaining all jobs lost in the recession by the second quarter of 2016.
The New England Economic Partnership, which is headed mainly by economics and public policy professors, expects Connecticut and Rhode Island to continue having the highest unemployment rates in the region through 2018. Connecticut’s annualized growth will be tied for last place with Maine, at 1 percent, the report projects.
NEEP thinks that Connecticut will gain 14,100 jobs this year, 25,100 jobs in 2015, and 23,300 in 2016. The state had recovered 65 percent of its lost jobs as of July.
The authors think Connecticut will have added a total of 80,000 jobs between the fourth quarter of 2013 and the fourth quarter of 2018. That is 28,000 positions below Moody’s baseline for Connecticut, they noted.
The report said pent-up demand in the residential real estate market, coupled with low prices and mortgage rates, should drive recovery in the existing home sale market this year and next, pushing up the median price to $293,100 by 2018 from an expected $258,600 this year.
Authors said Connecticut’s challenges ahead include its fiscal 2016 budget deficit, estimated at $1.28 billion; its low ranking in business-friendliness surveys; its aging and sluggishly growing population; aging infrastructure; and poverty.
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