(Bloomberg News) The U.S. economic expansion that began in June 2009 shows a dichotomy at the state level, with Nevada, California and Florida labor markets still languishing from the real estate collapse at the same time domestic energy production drives employment in North Dakota and Alaska.
By the first quarter of 2012, oil and gas-rich Texas will gain back all of the jobs it lost during the last recession, the third state to do so after North Dakota and Alaska, according to a forecast released yesterday by IHS Global Insight Inc. Nevada and Michigan won't get there until 2017 or after.
With widespread areas of the country lagging behind in job creation, the U.S. expansion may have trouble gaining momentum, said James Diffley, chief U.S. regional economist at IHS in Philadelphia. States such as Nevada, Florida and Georgia that benefited from the housing boom in 2002 to 2006 are now laggards, he said.
"There has been a dramatic reversal of fortunes," Diffley said. "The previously booming Sun Belt, excluding Texas, has morphed into the most depressed area of the country because of the housing bust. The unevenness from state to state is both a reflection of, and a cause of, the weak recovery."
Among the other largest U.S. states, New York and Pennsylvania will probably return to peak employment in 2013, Illinois and North Carolina in 2015, and California, Florida, Georgia and Ohio in 2016, IHS Global Insight projects.
Growth in the U.S. may be 2 percent next year, not enough to reduce unemployment much from a November level of 8.6 percent, said Mark Vitner, senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities LLC in Charlotte, North Carolina.
'Narrow' Recovery
"There are only a handful of bright spots," said Vitner. "I am troubled by how narrow the economic recovery is today. I think this puts us in a vulnerable position if Europe and the global economy weaken more quickly and more severely than is currently expected."
The ratio of bad loans as a proportion of total lending at Spanish banks climbed in October to the highest level since 1994, showing how the fallout from the country's property slump, rising unemployment and the spreading European debt crisis has hurt the industry, figures from the Bank of Spain showed today.
Data from Asia today indicated consumer spending in Japan is stabilizing, helping support an economy that faces growing risks from abroad. Japanese department store sales fell 1.9 percent in November from the same month a year earlier, the Japan Department Store Association said in Tokyo. The three- month moving average was a 1.6 percent drop, little changed from the August-October period, and demand has been "relatively solid," the group said.
Shares Rise
Stocks in the U.S. rose as European finance ministers seek to draw additional aid and form new budget rules to contain the region's debt crisis. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index climbed 0.3 percent to 1,223.62 at 9:40 a.m. in New York.