By Mike Harris Thursday, February 20th, 2025

Ventura County is experiencing a prolonged period of economic weakness, according to the 2025 forecast from the Center for Economic Research and Forecasting at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks.

“CERF’s forecast of average annual (GDP) growth from 2024 to 2027 is an improvement, but not hugely so, at an expansion of only 0.1%,” the report, released Feb. 20, says.

Ventura County’s real GDP peaked in 2007, prior to the Great Recession, and has not recovered, according to the report’s executive summary authored by Matthew Fienup, the economic think tank’s executive director.

Total economic activity in the county has declined in nine of the past 16 years, the report says.

It currently sits 9% below the 2007 high.

The county’s GDP grew by a relatively slow 0.7% in 2023, whereas the overall U.S. economy expanded by 2.9%, according to the outlook.

“Average annual real GDP growth in the county since the peak of activity in 2007 has been a contraction of 0.6%,” Fienup writes.

The non-durable manufacturing and enterprise management sectors have contributed in an out-sized way to the county’s GDP decline, the forecast says. 

While the county’s real GDP declined by $6.6 billion from 2007 to 2023, the NDU-MGM sectors declined by $20.1 billion, the report notes.

Job growth in the county remains positive although relatively weak, the outlook says.

Non-farm job growth averaged just 1.1% across 2023 and 2024, the forecast says.

The county’s job growth is highly concentrated in a single sector – education & health services, which, from 2007 to 2023, saw an impressive 22,600 new jobs, according to the study.

“But without it, the county’s total jobs would have declined by 4,400,” Fienup writes.

Yet, the average salary in the education & health services sector is $57,000, inadequate to support the county’s extremely high cost of living, according to the forecast.

Indeed, the report notes that the county’s median home price hit $972,000 in July 2024, an all-time high. 

“Considering both home prices and incomes, the National Association of Realtors currently ranks Ventura County as the second least affordable major metropolitan area in the nation,” the report says.

While that’s an improvement from last year when the county ranked as the single least affordable, a severe housing affordability crisis continues to be a primary driver of the net flight of individuals and economic activity from the county, the forecast says.

Driving the affordability crisis are county-wide Save Open Space and Agricultural Resource policies, CERF’s director of economics, Dan Hamilton, writes in the report.

SOAR laws require a majority vote of residents before agricultural land or open space areas in the county can be rezoned for development.

“As with last year, CERF’s forecast is computed under the assumption that the Ventura County policy and regulatory environment will not change materially from the stage that was set between 1998 and 2000, when SOAR policies were initially established,” Hamilton writes.

Without a more growth-oriented environment, “the new housing development rate will remain low,” he says.  

Following the standard assumption that 30% of gross income should be spent on housing, it would take an annual salary of $172,000 to afford the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Ventura County, according to the report. 

“Even more shockingly, it would take an annual income of $360,000 to afford to own the median home,” the outlook notes.

CERF’s forecast anticipates an overall 11% price rise from 2024 to 2027.

The county’s population, meanwhile, peaked in 2016 and has declined every year since, the report says.

The county’s labor force peaked in 2012, according to the forecast.

The net migration of people out of Ventura County has averaged negative 6,900 people per year since 2016, the study says.

Since 2005, more than 100,000 people, on net, have left the county for other locations in the U.S., representing a 12% reduction in population, according to the report. 

At the end of 2023, the county’s population was 823,860, about 2,100 residents lower than the previous year.

“At this level, the county’s population sits nearly 26,000 people below the 2016 peak,” the forecast notes.

“With the baseline assumption that high housing costs will continue driving households and economic activity out of the county, CERF forecasts that domestic migration will continue to be a net outflow,” the report says.

Even so, the forecast’s projected average outflow of 6,740 persons per year through 2027 is less than the outflow average of 8,000 persons per year over the past three years. 

The recent devastating fires in Los Angeles County are a new risk factor to the forecast, the report says.

“There will be a negative economic impact to Los Angeles County, with collateral damage to Ventura County’s economy as well,” according to the outlook.

“To an extent, this is embodied in our forecasts, however, the risk is that we are not assessing the magnitude accurately,” the report says.

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