San Gabriel Valley Economy Outperforms County’s

San Gabriel Valley economy has fared better than that of the rest of Los Angeles County, mainly because it has fewer of the defense industries that took the biggest hit during the recession, according to a study released Thursday.

“The San Gabriel Valley joblessness rate is 7.6%, while L.A. County’s is 9.9%,” said Roger Conover, the study’s author and director of the International MBA program at Azusa Pacific University.

“High-tech took a major hit, but the San Gabriel Valley only had 6% of all of the high-tech activity in the county,” Conover said. “So when high-tech employment decreased by a third between 1990 and ‘93, the San Gabriel Valley didn’t suffer much loss from that.”

San Gabriel Valley businesses suffered job losses attributable more to a downturn in the normal business cycle--jobs that are more likely to come back once a recovery starts in the region, he said.

A greater share of jobs in the area are in services and retail than in the county, the study found. Already, employment levels in the valley are on the upswing, with health care particularly strong, it said.

The study was prepared for the San Gabriel Valley Commerce and Cities Consortium Economic Outlook conference in Industry Hills.

It is the first phase of an attempt to monitor the economic conditions in the valley, which encompasses about 30 municipalities, about 1.5 million people and a gross output of $180 billion to $200 billion, Conover said.