Colgan pushes back job recovery forecast to 2018
One of Maine’s top economic forecasters has pushed predictions for a full post-recession job recovery back to 2018 in a fall report released today through the New England Economic Education Partnership.
Charlie Colgan, a professor of public policy and management at the University of Southern Maine's Muskie School of Public Service, wrote that job growth through the next 12 months will be slow but will pick up two to three years from now. Since the Great Recession, Colgan wrote that the state picked up an average of 2,000 jobs per year, making up only about 8,000 of the 28,000 wage and salary jobs lost from Maine’s economy during the recession.
In a May forecast, Colgan predicted a recovery in the fourth quarter of 2016. That timeline, too, had been pushed back from an earlier prediction that put the state’s job recovery in late 2015.
In the short term, Colgan wrote the federal government shutdown will have a concentrated impact on the fourth quarter of the year, but Maine's economy is still projected to gain 700 jobs for the period.
In the latest forecast, Colgan predicted Maine will have 617,000 jobs by the end of 2017, just below the pre-recession level of 620,000. Colgan predicts growth in the professional and business services and leisure and hospitality sectors will lead that growth.
Colgan wrote that government, retail trade and education and health sectors have shown weaker than expected growth, reflecting government budget cutbacks, the end of big box expansions and increasing encroachment of Internet retail sales and financial challenges for hospitals, which have historically supported a large share of Maine jobs.
Colgan wrote Maine’s housing sector, which has shown signs of recovery, could be a key factor in the state’s chances for recovery.
Generally, Colgan said the state will continue to be hampered by an aging population and a need for more people migrating into the state than current economic trends support.
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