Angelou, principal in Angelou Economics, said much of the forecast job growth for 2003--about 9,000 jobs--will come from government and won't have much impact on the private sector. In his preliminary forecast, Angelou said the city's economy will continue to struggle next year. The city's technology sector, which drove the city's hyper growth in the 1990s, will remain moribund before stabilizing in the 2003 second quarter, he said.

The loss of jobs in the past year helped drive negative office space absorption to 800,000 sf so far this year. Just over 22% of the city's 30.9 million sf is vacant. It could take three or four years to get that space filled up.

In the industrial market, negative absorption has been 1.74 million sf. The vacancy rate is 15.9%. That breaks down to 13% for warehouse/distribution space and 19% for research and development/flex space.