UConn Study Predicts Struggling CT Job Growth

Connecticut may struggle to continue its jobs growth this year if the national economy doesn’t pick up. That’s the message from a new forecast by the University of Connecticut. WNPR’s Harriet Jones reports.

This quarterly forecast says the economy is still being dragged down by the continuing problems of the housing market, unsustainable levels of consumer debt and now the wind-down of the federal stimulus effort. While Connecticut had encouraging jobs growth in the second quarter, adding some 8,000 jobs, Steven Lanza, editor of the UConn quarterly The Connecticut Economy says our future is closely tied to the fortunes of the nation.

“If the US economy were to grow at about a 3% rate over course of the next year or two, we’re going to add jobs at a rate of about 20,000 in Connecticut. Now if the US economy were to slow down just a little bit—somewhere around 2.5% or so, instead of it being 20,000 jobs, we’d be lucky to be adding back 10,000 jobs.”

But Lanza has also done research for this issue of the quarterly showing that Connecticut’s entrepreneurial sector is more vibrant than previously realized. Many of the self-employed are not counted in the official employment numbers – if they were, the state’s total employment would be improved by half a million jobs. He says these entrepreneurs should not be so invisible to policy makers.

“It would certainly make a lot of sense to try to do what we can to translate these self employment jobs into new firms, into new industries that would then add jobs for other workers as well.”

He suggests the state improve its efforts to help micro-enterprises, and adopt an earned income tax credit, boosting the incentive for low income residents to earn self-employment dollars.

For WNPR, I'm Harriet Jones.