TheBakersfieldCalifornian.com

Although the economic downturn continues, improvements in key sectors have businesses and consumers feeling more optimistic about the economy than they have in years, according to recently released economic data on Kern County.

The data are from Cal State Bakersfield's Kern Economic Journal, a quarterly report on economic conditions in the region based on surveys of shoppers and business leaders.

The university uses the survey findings to produce a Business Outlook Index and a Bakersfield Consumer Sentiment Index, both of which are updated quarterly. Index values above 100 indicate optimism, and anything lower than that shows pessimism.

After dipping to 75 in the third quarter of 2011, consumer sentiment soared to 102 at the end of last year, the first reading above 100 since the national recession began in the fourth quarter of 2007.

"In the third quarter, everything you listened to on TV was speculation about whether there was going to be a double dip recession," Cal State Bakersfield economist Mark Evans, who is the journal's co-publisher and editor, said Tuesday. "It scared people.

"Then some positive indicators came out nationally, and I think consumers started feeling better."

Asked how they were doing financially compared to a year ago, 32 percent of Kern respondents said they were better off, compared with a quarter of those surveyed who said they were worse off. Conditions were unchanged for the rest.

Even discretionary spending, which is the first to go when hard-pressed families have to prioritize, seemed to be holding its own. Some 70 percent of respondents said they spent the same or more on dining out, weekend outings and entertainment in the fourth quarter, compared with 30 percent who spent less than usual.

Claire Uricchio Porter, owner of fine dining eatery Uricchio's Trattoria, said she's noticed a huge difference.

"In the last year, it's picked up considerably," she said. "Where in the past we might have had two or three slow nights, now it's maybe one slow night a week, and we're always busy on weekends, holidays and things like that."

Porter attributes that to improvement in the economy generally and a conscious effort on the part of civic leaders to organize events that bring visitors to downtown Bakersfield.

"We're all working together," she said.

The Business Outlook Index climbed 16 points to 113 in the fourth quarter of last year.

Twenty-nine percent of business managers surveyed said sales and profits at their companies had increased, compared with 23 percent who reported a reduction.

"We saw improvements across the board except for housing," said CSUB economist Abbas Grammy, publisher and managing editor of the journal. "Home sales are still slow and prices are falling, and foreclosures, while they're coming down, are still really high."

The sluggish housing market will continue to slow the economic recovery, Grammy said, but things are definitely looking up elsewhere, both in terms of current conditions and the outlook for the future.

Kenny Jones is general manager of Elite Site Services Inc., a Bakersfield company that provides portable toilets and other equipment for rent.

He's getting a lot of business from agriculture and industrial clients such as oil and gas companies, but says construction customers are still hard to come by.

"People are cautious about building, and although rates are still as good as they've ever been, the banks aren't making a lot of loans for either commercial or residential," Jones said.

But if agriculture and gas continue their come back, they can pull everyone else up, Jones added. "Typically oil and ag have carried this community," he said. "When they're doing well, everything else tends to follow. They will pull us out of this. It's not going to be like it was 10 years ago, but I think there's going to be realistic growth."

The county's economy expanded at an annual rate of 2.5 percent, according to the journal. That generated $15.6 billion in real personal income in the fourth quarter, $98 million more than the quarter before.

Last year's 15.2 percent annual average unemployment rate was a slight improvement over the 15.9 percent average in 2010.

That's more than apparent to Geoffrey Whynot, chief operating and financial officer of Mazzei Injector Co., which sells injectors, specialized nozzles, degassing separators and other equipment used in water management.

"I keep hearing about the unemployment rate being so high, but for certain positions, like engineering talent, it's really hard to find people," he said. "We have openings but we're having a hard time finding good, qualified people. To me, that's a sign."