LOS ANGELES—The greater Los Angeles area saw a 1.7% increase inemployment during the third quarter, compared to last year,according to the 3Q14 office report from Cushman &Wakefield. The report shows that the Los Angelesoffice market is beginning to gain momentum due toan overall healthy quarter with “significant growth that elevatedmarket fundamentals to an unprecedented level.”

"The office market in Los Angeles has been struggling for a longtime while the rest of the U.S picked up," Petra Durnin, managingdirector of research at Cushman & Wakefield, tells GlobeSt.com."There were some glimmers of improvement for few quarters but now,along with data that backs up the feeling of improvement, thesentiment from landlords and brokers alike is that the Los Angelesoffice market is beginning a positive trend. The demand from theTAMI sector is buoying the L.A. market."

At a glance, the office market is performing well. Vacancy ratesin the greater Los Angeles area dropped 1.5% year-over-year to 17%,while direct asking rents climbed by 3.5%. For class-A properties,rents averaged $2.89 per square foot, an additional 1.9% increase.Overall, the quarter saw 1.1 million square feet of absorption, themost of any quarter since 2008. Year-over-year absorption is 2.3million square feet. According to Durnin, this is the mostsurprising finding in the report. "The level of activity in thirdquarter was most surprising. Leasing activity and vacancy have beensteadily improving, but of the year-to-date 2.3 million square feetof occupancy gains, 1.1 million square feet occurred in just thethird quarter, the most for any quarter since the recession," shesays.