By Mike Harris Monday, April 28th, 2025

Apart from trade volumes through the Port of Hueneme, there is little evidence of accelerating momentum in any Ventura County sector, according to a new 2025 economic forecast.

Even so, as interest rates decline in 2025, the outlook for new development in the county appears quite favorable in 2025 and 2026, according to the report by economist Mark Schniepp, director of the California Economic Forecast think tank in Santa Barbara. 

Schniepp presented his findings at the Ventura County Taxpayers Foundation’s annual economic outlook conference on April 17 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Westlake Village.

“Ventura County is doing about as well as the rest of Southern California right now,” Schniepp told the Business Times at the event. 

“It’s very sluggish growth,” he said. “We’re just kind of like chugging along.”

The greater Ventura County economy – represented by gross regional product – has struggled to record positive annual growth over the last 15 years, the report says.

“There is very little evidence of accelerating momentum in any particular sector other than import and export trade volumes through the Port of Hueneme,” Schniepp writes.

Indeed, said Kristin Decas, the port’s CEO and director, auto imports were up more than 12% and bananas by nearly 8% in the last fiscal year.

“This is a testament to the hard-working men and women who help us make cargo move into and out of our region each day,” she said in an April 21 statement to the Business Times.

Earlier in April, Decas said port officials didn’t anticipate an immediate, short-term reduction in auto imports due to President Donald Trump’s 25% tariffs on passenger vehicles.

Schniepp’s report notes that Ventura County’s population, currently about 825,000 residents, has been contracting since 2017 due to out-migration.

That’s caused by insufficient available and affordable housing, and the absence of organic growth of local companies, the analysis says.

The county’s population is expected to continue declining for at least the next five years, according to the forecast.

The county’s unemployment rate remains relatively low at 4.7%, a full percentage point lower than the state’s, Schniepp writes.

“Job creation is weak, and has been since mid-2022,” the report says.

In 2023 and 2024, only three sectors of the labor market have added meaningfully to the county’s labor force: healthcare, local government, and leisure and hospitality, according to the outlook.

The county’s jobs growth rate during 2025 is forecast at 0.6%, down from 0.8% in 2024, the forecast says.

In 2025, the median family income in the county is estimated at $131,300, which is considerably higher than the statewide median of $116,300, the report says.

Inflation-adjusted family incomes have risen steadily since 2021. But they are forecast to level out over the next three years, largely due to the lack of higher-paying job growth in the county, according to the outlook.

The county’s existing home market remains in a recession, the forecast says.

“There is very little for-sale inventory though it is rising this year,” it says. “Selling values for existing housing continue to rise to all-time highs.”

For the most recent calendar year, the median selling price was $929,188, a 3.4% increase over 2023, according to the report.

Sales and inventory are higher in 2025, but mortgage rates won’t decline enough to deliver a meaningful change in the housing market, the study says.

Higher levels of office vacancy together with default risk renders the office market weak and vulnerable in 2025, the outlook says.

The largest industrial projects coming to the county are the Rancho Conejo Life Sciences Campus in Thousand Oaks, and the 101 Logistics Center in Oxnard, according to the analysis.

“These projects represent more than one million square feet of new industrial space that will extend the workforce base in the county over the next five years,” the forecast says.

The county’s 2024 retail climate was stagnant, Schniepp writes.

Total taxable retail sales were 0.3% higher than in 2023, but adjusted for inflation, they were down 2.9%. 

Though the gross crop production value in the county was at an all-time high in 2023, adjusted for inflation, the crop value has been in decline since 2015, the report says.

Agricultural value has not kept pace with the total production value of all goods and services in Ventura County, according to the study.

Total farm employment accounts for 7% of total wage and salary jobs in the county, but the gross value of all farm products contributes only 3.3% of total gross county product, the outlook says.

Schniepp said Save Open Space and Agriculture Resources laws need to be revised to jump-start the county’s economy.

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

“If policymakers were serious about promoting and achieving economic development efforts, serious consideration for a revision to SOAR would be a topic of discussion,” the report says.

“To date, however, any modification to soften the SOAR initiatives has been off the table,” it says.

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