Ventura County's economy will come to a near-standstill in 2008.

The real gross county product, a measure of economic growth, grew by 4.5 percent in 2006 and is expected to grow 1.4 percent in 2007. The forecast is 1 percent for 2008.

Real gross county product is the value of goods and services produced annually in the county and adjusted for inflation to give a true sense of how the economy compares year over year.

"Because of (layoffs at) Amgen and Countrywide, we've significantly downgraded our forecast for Ventura County," said Bill Watkins, executive director of the UC Santa Barbara Economic Forecast Project. "It's a huge decrease in growth rates. ... For businesses, it's pretty hard to tell between 1 percent and 0 percent."

Watkins is presenting an economic forecast today for the city of Oxnard, but the report touches on conditions countywide. It is the first economic assessment since news hit about job cuts at Amgen Inc. and Countrywide Financial Corp., the county's two largest private employers.

Close attention is being paid to this year's report, said leaders of the organizations sponsoring the event - the Oxnard Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development Corp. of Oxnard.

"The Chamber of Commerce is always looking at the challenges presented to our community ... for those who live here, those who work here and employers who provide jobs here," said Nancy Lindholm, chamber president and chief executive. "It's all about quality of life and a healthy economy."

Home sales fall 30 percent

Watkins said Countrywide and Amgen cuts will mean decreased demand for goods and services, weak job growth and a decrease in home demand. Median home prices could fall as a result.

Ventura County's home sales have dropped by about 30 percent from 2006 to 2007.

Restructuring at Countrywide and Amgen could cause the median home price for single-family homes in Ventura County to decline in real value adjusted for inflation by 10.7 percent in 2008. That shakes out in actual dollars from a 2007 median home price of just under $670,000 to a median of $624,100 in 2008. The median is the midpoint, where half the sales are more and half are less.

Home sales are expected to rebound next year.

The good news for the county is the economy will start to pick up again fairly quickly by 2009, according to the forecast, which predicts real gross county product growth of 3.7 percent that year.

Still, there's a lot of uncertainty. Ventura County is expected to rebound slower than elsewhere in the state because of the after-effects of the layoffs, Watkins said.

Steve Kinney, president of the Economic Development Corp. of Oxnard, said his general sense was that Oxnard and other west county cities would be hurt less from the Countrywide and Amgen cutbacks than cities in the east county.

"Our economies are not so closely bound up directly in the fortunes of those companies as the east county cities," he said. "That's not to say that we are immune."

Particularly with the housing market, Kinney expects the hits will come first in the east county and then ripple outward through the county.

Oxnard in better shape

In past years, Watkins described Oxnard as the city with "the most dynamic and well-balanced economy in the Tri-Counties," said the chamber's Lindholm. "I'm not getting the feeling we're going to hear any of that good news this year."

Oxnard should ride out the down economy better than some other parts of the county, Watkins said.

The city has grown more rapidly than the rest of the county in recent years, and that's expected to continue. Oxnard's real gross product for this year is expected to be a "healthy" 4 percent gain from 2006, according to Watkins' report. It is forecast to grow 4.3 percent in 2008.

Kinney said Oxnard has been able to encourage new business because it had more land available for development than other cities. New residential development is drawing in new retailers, providing job growth for the city.

"The growth is certainly a trend that is powerful enough to stay in place over the years," Kinney said. "The slope line is definitely upwards, it's just a matter of what angle the line is riding at the moment."

Watkins said Oxnard has Naval Base Ventura County and the Port of Hueneme, which are economic engines of their own, boosting the city's economic strength. It also has a good industrial base to draw on and relatively inexpensive work force. The city's average salary in 2007 is an estimated $39,620, though it ranges from an average of $22,533 in agriculture to $107,227 in mining.

Another meeting slated

Four things could have an effect on Oxnard's economy going forward, Lindholm said. They include the real estate market, Countrywide, Amgen and a traffic initiative before Oxnard voters that would halt development within five miles of congested intersections until the problem is corrected. A study commissioned by the city showed it would halt 10 pending projects with a combined value of $7.2 billion.