Housing, economy experts maintain positive outlook

Arizona has regained one-quarter of the jobs lost during the economic crisis and the job market is on track to fully recover in 2015, experts said Tuesday. Housing and economy experts from Arizona State University's W.P. Carey School of Business offered optimistic but guarded predictions at the annual economic-forecast luncheon held by the Economic Club of Phoenix. About 250 people attended the event. The 2015 estimate mirrors that given by the experts last year, which may be a positive sign. In earlier years, economists would make similar predictions but push back Arizona's recovery date the next year because the state was healing more slowly than they had expected. "The jobs recovery is under way, but the full recovery is still ahead of us," said Lee McPheters, an economics-research professor and director of the JPMorgan Chase Economic Outlook Center. Arizona lost about 314,000 jobs between October 2007 and September 2010. As of March, it has regained about 78,000 of those jobs, McPheters said.

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