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IRVINE, CA-A recent Orange County employment overview by Jones Lang LaSalle shows continuous improvement of the county's overall employment, allowing it to still outperform the US economy in job growth. The region's unemployment rate dropped from 5.6% last month to 5.2%, considerably lower than the peak of 9.9% to 10% seen during the height of the recession.

“There are new high-rise office buildings and apartment communities being built, and even the [single-family] housing market is starting to be built,” Jeff Ingham, SVP for JLL, tells GlobeSt.com. “Beyond that, a lot of healthcare jobs are being added, and there's some healthcare construction with Hoag adding a satellite hospital. There's also some new relatively modest-sized industrial development.”

Ingham qualifies the employment picture as “robust, and I'd also say firms like ours are hiring quite a bit as we see the recovery coming. We do see business picking up this year compared to last.”

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There is still some concern about the financial-services industry, Ingham cautious, “that area where we have a pretty significant employment base. As interest rates continue to increase, we project there will be less demand for mortgage-type positions.”

Also, technology is providing efficiencies in the workplace that result in fewer jobs required and/or changes to jobs that were available in the past. “This is a risk not just to Orange County, but everywhere,” says Ingham.

There has been overall volatility with employment across the country, but Ingham points out that Orange County's job curve has been steeper because it was so hard hit by the loss of mortgage-related jobs. “We tend to have a steeper curve going down and coming back. The recovery is about half a point better than the overall US market as far as growth in employment. We are significantly below national levels for unemployment. As the economy goes down, construction goes down, and the same with it coming back up.”

If the current recovery is the new normal, then, Ingham concludes, “Do we really want it to be the way it was in 2007?”

As GlobeSt.com reported in October 2013, despite potential threats, several factors paint a positive picture for Orange County's office market, according to JLL. Positive job growth and a relatively low unemployment rate put the economy in a good light, and positive net absorption, an active construction pipeline and a flurry of sales transactions indicate strong fundamentals.