Economy

National consumer confidence rebounded strongly in December, according to a report released Tuesday. The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index was 78.1 for the last month of the year, up from 72.1 in November. That moved the index closer to where it was before the government shutdown in October: the confidence …

California added 90,100 non-agricultural jobs during November, according to a report released last week by the state Employment Development Department. The state has now added more than 1.5 million jobs since the recovery officially began in February 2010, according to the data, which was based on the results of two …

Look for vacancy rate to drop next year, but any “spec” development is a long way off With the economy on the mend, some good things are expected to happen in the Inland Empire office market during 2014. Vacancy should continue to drop, as more of the Class A and …

California’s unemployment rate dropped to 8.5 percent in November. That represented a decline of one-fifth of a percentage point from October, according to an Associated Press report. California has added 903,000 jobs since February 2010, according to the report, which cited data from the Employment Development Department. The state is …

National retail sales rose dramatically last week, as the Christmas shopping season entered its final phase. Sales were up four percent for the week that ended Sunday compared with the week that ended Dec. 7, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers and Goldman Sachs Weekly Chain Store Index. …

In another sign of a recovering economy, U.S workers increased their productivity between July and September at the fastest pace since the end of 2009. Productivity was up three percent year-to-year during the third quarter, up from 1.8 percent during the second quarter, according to data released Monday by the …