Even though it officially ended in 2009, the Great Recession seemed to hang over Southern California like stank in a public transit bus.

UCLA's latest Anderson Forecast quarterly economic report was released this week, and the news is much more aromatic. 

In addressing California, the report calls for “continued steady gains in employment through 2017” and “a steady decrease in the unemployment rate in California over the next two years,” according to a summary.

The university's economic forecasters are calling for 2.5 percent growth in employment for 2015, 2.1 percent next year and 1.4 percent in 2017.

“Payrolls will grow more at about the same rate,” UCLA says. “Real personal income growth is estimated to be 4.3 percent in 2015 and forecast to be 3.4 percent in 2016 and 3.2 percent in 2017.”

Yay. Money. We haven't been seeing you around here much in recent years.

Another way UCLA tracks the local and California economy is through measuring purchases of office equipment. According to the school:

The three biggest metropolitan areas in the country — New York, Los Angeles and Chicago — have seen lower growth in office-using employment over the past eight and 16 years compared to most other major cities. One of the reasons is that they lost a significant number of jobs in the finance sector during and after the financial crisis.

Other business is good. Port activity in L.A. hit an all-time high in September, residential construction is on the rise, and traveler numbers at LAX and San Francisco International Airport reached record highs this year, UCLA says.

“With the financial emergency long over, the unemployment rate [will be] indicating near-full employment” nationwide, says UCLA Anderson senior economist David Shulman. “Employment remains healthy, with the economy generating jobs at a 200,000-a-month clip that will bring with it further declines in the unemployment rate … “

If the job hunt is still getting you down, remember this: Uber is always hiring.

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