Jobs in Arizona won’t return to pre-recession levels until 2013, an ASU economist said Wednesday at the W. P. Carey School of Business’ annual Economic Forecast Luncheon.

Lee McPheters, director of the W. P. Carey School of Business JPMorgan Chase Economic Outlook Center, said while stimulus money has added more than 12,000 jobs in Arizona, the state has lost more than 300,000 jobs since December 2007 and will continue to lose jobs in 2010, though at a lower rate.

“For 2010, we’re expecting another year of job losses, so you have an unprecedented three years of job losses [in Arizona],” he said.

To more than 1,000 guests at the Phoenix Convention Center, McPheters said the recession may be over nationally but is definitely still affecting Arizona.

Arizona’s economy has been among the best in the nation recovering after previous downturns, but nonetheless, it will take about four years for Arizona employment to return to 2007 levels, he said.

“Three to four years from now we’ll be doing better than every other state in the nation, but it’s going to be two, three tough years ahead of us,” he said, explaining that Arizona’s economic recovery will depend on national economic recovery.

Consumers have begun to spend more, McPheters said, but by comparison to what they were spending months before the recession, they’re not in the game.

“From the perspective of the consumer, the small businessperson, it appears that there is really no end in sight to this situation that the Arizona economy is in,” he said.

Anthony Chan, managing director and chief economists for JPMorgan Chase Private Client Services, said economic activity is picking up nationally.

“Some stores even decided to open up their doors at midnight right after Thanksgiving,” he said.

Chan said he feels the recession most likely ended in the second quarter of the year.

“The bad news is most of those economists that forecasted correctly that the recession was over by the middle of the year were laid off last month,” he said jokingly, explaining that unemployment has continued rising despite the economy’s recovery.

The national unemployment rate, currently at 10.2 percent according to Arizona Commerce Department, will improve but probably finish 2010 above 9 percent, Chan said.

“In fact, I have three kids and they haven’t been able to find a job, so we pay them to do chores around the house,” he said. “But after seeing last month’s unemployment rate, we had to lay off one of our kids.”

One of the biggest debates now among economists is whether the current recovery will return to the prosperous economic levels seen before the recession or find new normal, lower levels, he said.

“The truth is probably somewhere in the middle,” he said. “It’s going to take several years to get back to an unemployment rate that we like to see, like a 5 to 6 percent unemployment rate.”

Elliot Pollack, chief executive officer of Elliot D. Pollack and Company, a real estate and economic consulting firm, said it appears Arizona’s real estate market has bottomed out and is expected to increase in 2010 but will still be way off the peak levels of housing sales, seen in 2005.

“It’s going to be quite a while until things get back to normal,” he said.

Pollack said the commercial real estate market is also doing poorly as office vacancies will exceed 27 percent, an Arizona record, while apartment vacancies could exceed 14 percent.

“Where are these people going? Well, some of them are leaving town, some of them are either buying or renting single family homes, some are simply doubling up or moving home with mom and dad because they can’t afford to live by themselves,” he said.

Pollack said it will take a decade for commercial real estate prices to get back to 2005 levels.

“Things will pick up in 2010, but it’s not going to be anything to write home about,” he said.