Economic growth in East Central Indiana will be below the state and national level next year, according to the 2015 forecast.
Michael Hicks, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research, gave his forecast for the 2015 economy at the 19th annual Indiana Economic Outlook Thursday, an event hosted by Ball State.
Hicks predicted 2015 would be the best year of national economic performance since 2007.
“But overall growth will remain slower, as will levels of employment relative to population,” he said in his report.
He said Indiana will most likely have a better year than the national economy, with a GDP growth of about 3.3 to 3.4 percent.
“Indiana will be back to the pre-recession numbers,” he said. “That is extraordinarily good news overall.”
He said there would not only be job creation, but job turbulence would be smoothing out.
However, for East Central Indiana, he said growth would be smaller than at the state level.
“We’re nearing the end of a long period of population decline,” Hicks said.
In his forecast report, he said the population decline was leading to a weakening economy.
Indiana Governor Mike Pence was the keynote speaker at the program and spoke highly of Hicks.
“It’s encouraging and exciting to hear the projections and predictions of someone particularly respected for his view,” Pence said.
Pence’s speech was mainly about education and his plans to improve the schools in Indiana.
Pence said education was the key to keeping Indiana on track.
His goal by 2020 is to have the 100,000 students who are in “D” or “F” graded schools, be in “B” or better rated schools.
“To achieve that, we need to find excellence in education, expand choices and fix what’s broken in education in Indiana,” Pence said.
He said since schools focus a lot on getting to college, and then train students for a career in college, students who don’t go to college and want to go to right into work after high school are at a disadvantage.
“There’s a lot of jobs that aren’t being filled out there because there are a lot of kids who don’t have the training or skills for them,” Pence said.
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