TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Oct. 24, 2008 – Florida’s housing market – and in turn, its economy – may not fully recover until 2011, state economists said Thursday.

That’s up to a year later than the economists forecast this summer, when they predicted a rebound in January 2010, and normal growth rates by July. The new forecasts call for bad economic news until then in everything from unemployment to auto sales to wages.

“In response to the credit market, and the fact that that’s causing some global disruption and global recession, we’ve essentially started pushing back the recovery,” said Amy Baker, coordinator of the Legislature’s Office of Economic and Demographic Research.

Florida’s economic recovery depends most on its housing market, she said. That market is now expected to rebound in April 2010; total recovery could take a full year after that.

As long as Florida weathers heavy job losses, home sales will suffer, said Clyde Diao, economic analyst for Gov. Charlie Crist. “A lot of people are losing jobs in the state of Florida,” he said. “If you don’t have a job, you don’t have many options.”

The economists were still fine-tuning their analyses Thursday night for indicators such as income levels, jobs and home construction. Already, however, they were painting a gloomy picture.

Unemployment, for example, may exceed 8 percent by 2010. Vehicle sales are predicted to nose dive this fiscal year by about 18 percent. Tourism will decline 1.2 percent before crawling back slowly in 2009-2010.

“What we didn’t have in July was the credit freeze,” Baker said. “What we didn’t have in July that we have today is the involvement of the global economy ... international travel, tourism, expenditures in Florida when they’re here – those kind of things, we’re saying, because of the global recession that’s in the mix now, is going to have a spillover effect on Florida.”

The analyst cited record numbers of unknowns that could dampen the economy’s performance even more.

“We are assuming a resolution to the credit crisis; we’re assuming that it’s going to occur in the next couple of quarters, which is relatively fast. We’re assuming that the global recession has an impact but that it’s not devastating,” Baker said. “We’re basically saying it’s going to be a pretty orderly recovery ... certainly in the last month, we’ve seen anything but orderly.”

She predicted confidently, however, that Florida’s revenue shortfall will be steeper than predicted in August. Based on that forecast, lawmakers are already expecting a budget hole of up to $3.5 billion next fiscal year.

Asked about calling lawmakers back to the Capitol for a special budget-cutting session, House Speaker-designate Ray Sansom, R-Destin was noncommittal.

But Democratic Rep. Ron Saunders, a former House appropriations chairman, said lawmakers must return before the regular legislative session to carve into the state budget “with a scalpel” rather than sign off on across-the-board reductions.

“I don’t think across-the-board cuts are very smart because it rewards inefficient agencies and penalizes the efficient ones,” said Saunders, D-Key West. “I think we should come back in December.”