The region’s business community heard a mixed economic outlook for the coming year Thursday, with job growth coming in as one of the top challenges.

The forecast and review of the area’s economic standing was part of the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce’s annual Regional Economic Outlook Breakfast, held at the New Haven Lawn Club.

Todd P. Martin, economic adviser to People’s Bank, focused on the many issues facing the state, including employment and housing concerns.

On the commercial real estate front, Richard S. Guralnick, senior broker at H. Pearce Commercial Real Estate, reviewed some of the positive and negative aspects of the market, as well as the trends.

"The economy is doing a lot better than people think it is," Martin told a crowd of 200, pointing to national economic and employment growth.

While Connecticut has been slowly recovering jobs, it still lags the nation in job growth and faces affordable housing and transportation infrastructure challenges.

On the upside, the state surpasses most of the nation when it comes to worker productivity, and though housing is expensive the market is not overvalued compared with other areas of the nation.

Also, while energy costs could hamper growth, gasoline prices are back down to pre-hurricane season levels.

Still, the state is still down 25,400 jobs from its employment peak in July 2000 and hasn’t seen job growth since 1989, Martin said. The New Haven area only added 200 new jobs over the last 12 months.

Over the long term, the state will see the largest growth in the nursing field, with a projected 5,248 additional registered nurses by 2012. After that, the next several fields involve jobs mostly in the service sector, including cashiers, retail salesmen, and waiters and waitresses.

Job creation remains the biggest focus for the chamber, said President Anthony P. Rescigno.

"Clearly, we’re in an economy where you can look at it as if the glass is half full or half empty," he said, adding he is optimistic about future job and economic growth.

Meanwhile, the region’s commercial real estate market has been experiencing high vacancy rates, though development trends point to future growth, Guralnick said, adding that government needs to foster a more business-friendly environment to attract new tenants.

"Things need to happen at the state, local and regional level," he said. "We need to be more business friendly."

Greater New Haven’s office market for buildings with more than 10,000 square feet now has an 18 percent vacancy rate, while the city’s central business district has an 11 percent vacancy rate. Those figures are comparable with both Stamford and Greenwich, he said, and if the market isn’t doing well there, it usually doesn’t do well here, he added.

"I don’t think they’ll (businesses) be coming over the Housatonic (River) any time soon," he said.

But a number of current projects, such as the Gateway Downtown Development Project and various retail and office projects in North Haven and East Haven, as well as a jump in medical facility construction, point to future economic growth, he said.

H. Pearce Commercial Real Estate specializes in Connecticut’s central, south-central, and Shoreline markets, with offices in North Haven and Rocky Hill. Commercial property offerings can be found in color on the web at www.HPearceCommercial.com.