Sandy Parker's comments from the Thursday, Jan. 8 Press Conference:

As you in the news business know all too well, 2008 was a year of political and economic surprises. We started the year with a new governor and ended the year with a different new governor. The Dow started the year above 13,000 and ended the year flirting with 8,000.

No doubt the challenges will continue as we head into 2009. Over the last few weeks you've been hearing a lot about the national outlook for the coming year. So I thought today I'd bring the issue closer to home by sharing with you our local economic outlook for 2009, capped off with what's become known as Parker's Predictions for the New Year. These are educated guesses or in some cases wishful thinking and are my personal forecasts on some key local issues and personalities.

Here goes:
The local economic horizon for 2009 is a mixed bag.

Overall hiring in our region will remain weak - largely driven by additional cuts in the manufacturing sector. Unfortunately when you look at a year over year snapshot, Rochester had the poorest performance of any of the major metro centers in the state. Since 2000 our region has lost about 31 percent of its manufacturing jobs.

However there are bright spots. These include:

• The machine/tool industry - always looking for skilled workers and many training spots remain unfilled.
• Those companies associated with the defense industry - like Harris Corp, Redcom and others continue to look for highly technical skilled workers.
• Sentry Safe - has seen an upturn largely because of the national concern over the stability of the banking industry.
• Regional banks like Canandaigua National Bank and First Niagara continue to grow and more importantly loan money.

Health care and education have been the economic drivers for our region for several years. Health care in particular still has many plans for expansion and growth. This could be curtailed by proposed spending cuts at the state level. So this is an area of concern for us.

Rochester has traditionally been a community that neither booms nor busts. We didn't benefit from the economic prosperity of the 90's nor do I feel we will suffer as badly as some other areas in the current recession.

While much of the nation has been in a credit crisis we have largely been unaffected. Our larger manufacturers are facing reduced sales because nationally, firms are unable to find financing needed to purchase big ticket items. Our regional banks are still making business loans, mortgages are available although credit standards are tighter than they were before the crisis hit.

Meanwhile, local employers seem to be taking steps to mitigate their risk. They're holding off on expansions, limiting new hires. While that's tough news in the moment, it means that when the credit market improves and the economy starts growing again, those businesses will be well positioned to take advantage and add jobs.

The manufacturing downsizing we've experienced here has also caused our local manufacturers to reconsider their operations. Many have adapted their products and services to the changing market, increased efficiency and found new markets. As a result, they are financially healthy and competitive.

Our real estate market is another bright spot. It's true that the market has slowed but because we never experienced housing prices heat up to over-inflated values we are not seeing the bubble burst. The Rochester region has typically had rather conservative lending practices so many of the exotic mortgages and other financial products that have been blamed for the housing crisis were not available here.

So in a nutshell - my economic forecast for 2009 is pretty flat. No deep valleys - hopefully we'll begin to see steady market pick up toward the end of the year which will positively affect other sectors.