By Mike Harris Thursday, February 20th, 2025

Ventura County’s lackluster economy is not expected to improve substantially in the near future, 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 percent,” 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 forecast says.

It currently sits nine percent below the 2007 high.

The county’s GDP grew by a relatively slow 0.7 percent in 2023, whereas the overall U.S. economy expanded by 2.9 percent, the study says.

“Average annual real GDP growth in the county since the peak of activity in 2007 has been a contraction of 0.6 percent,” according to the report.