ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) – University of Michigan experts say the state’s economy will continue to grow in the next two years. The annual forecast released Friday by George Fulton and colleagues Joan Crary, Gabriel Ehrlich and Donald Grimes says Michigan will add about 126,000 jobs in that period. The economists see the state’s unemployment rate declining from 5 percent to 4.8 percent at the end of 2016 and 4.5 percent at the end of 2017. In all, Michigan will have gained more than 586,000 jobs during the economic recovery from summer 2009 through the end of 2017. They say that returns the job count to levels of spring 2003 and recoups more than two-thirds of jobs lost since mid-2000. Fulton is director of the school’s Research Seminar in Quantitative Economics.
