Economy

Manufacturing in the Inland Empire stayed strong last month. The region’s purchasing managers index in January was 53.5, one point below December but still an indication of a growing manufacturing sector, according to the Inland Empire Report on Business. Most important, January was the fourth consecutive month the index was …

Unemployment in California dropped to seven percent in December, a decline of two percentage points month over month. That’s the good news. The not-so-good news is that the state added only 700 jobs during the last month of 2014, bringing its official job gain to more than 1.5 million since …

National housing starts rose 4.4 percent year-over-year in December and topped one million units during 2014, according to the U.S. Commerce Department. Those numbers were driven mostly by gains in single-family housing construction, according to the commerce department, which released its data Wednesday. “[These] figures continue to be in line …

U.S. retail sales rose 4.6 percent in December year-over-year, as the country completed is strongest holiday shopping season in several years. GAFO-store sales – which measures sales in department stores, including furniture, electronics, clothing and sporting goods – were up 2.9 percent compared with December 2013, according to recent data …

Just don’t look for anything spectacular. Lease and vacancy rates will improve only slightly, and very little construction will happen. The market is treading water, waiting for the full economic recovery believed to be a year away. The Inland Empire retail market, which was stopped cold when the Great Recession …

Southern California home sales rose significantly in December, boosted in part by lower mortgage rates and solid job growth. More than 19,000 new and used single-family homes were sold in the six-county region last month, a 4.3 percent increase compared with December 2013, according to CoreLogic DataQuick in San Diego. …