The state budget crisis and a still-weak housing market will push the Sacramento region's unemployment rate to 13.5 percent by the middle of next year, according to a forecast released Tuesday by California State University, Sacramento.
The forecast, produced by the university and the Chartered Financial Analyst Institute, says the region will likely lose 20,000 jobs over the next year. That comes on top of the 46,000 jobs it has lost in the past 12 months.
"The public sector is the primary driver here," said co-author Sanjay Varshney, dean of the university's College of Business Administration. "It's a $26 billion shortfall, and we know they are not fixing it using taxes this time. No matter how you slice it, there's going to be a combination of layoffs and furloughs."
The cutbacks in state payrolls will lead to job losses elsewhere in the public and private sectors, he added.
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