Daily Dose: Friday, Friday, Friday

Events

Chargers on TV

The Chargers sold enough tickets this week to have Sunday evening's home game against Baltimore shown on local television, the team announced Thursday.

Team officials said Tuesday they had to sell 2,000 seats so they wouldn't run afoul of the NFL's blackout policy for the second week in a row. The league requires all but the priciest seats to be sold 72 hours before kickoff.

Qualcomm Stadium, which will temporarily be renamed Snapdragon Stadium beginning Friday as part of a promotion for a new line of mobile processors, holds more than 70,000 people for football.

The 5:30 p.m. contest against the playoff-bound Ravens is the Chargers' last home contest this season.

-City News Service

Daily Deal: Custom Christmas Ornamants Half Price

This holiday season, in addition to twinkling lights and tinsel, trim your tree with something meaningful and personal. Spruce it up with photos of family, friends and special moments with today’s deal at Oiiiio.com.

With its simple process and user-friendly web site, Oiiiio.com makes creating your own personalized, porcelain ornaments easy. Choose your favorite photo or art print, upload it through the site, and in no time you’ll have a unique ornament to accompany the rows of lights and garlands on your own tree, or a special keepsake to leave under someone else’s as a treasured holiday gift.

Economic Growth Forecast

A newly released economic forecast says the San Diego area economy will grow by 1.8 percent next year.

The authors of the forecast released Thursday by the National University System Institute for Policy Research said the rate of growth, while the best in six years, is still sluggish. They estimated this year's increase in San Diego's gross domestic product to be 1.4 percent.

San Diego will gain 21,000 jobs in 2012, but the unemployment rate will fall only slightly to 9.8 percent because people who haven't been looking for work in recent months -- and aren't counted in current jobless statistics -- are expected to return to the labor force, according to the report.

The numbers gain will still bring the region only a little more than halfway toward recovering the number of jobs lost in the recession, the authors said.

The report stated that San Diegans are being challenged by the types of jobs being created, either low-skilled, low-wage work that cannot be outsourced or very high-skilled positions -- and not much in between.

Industries expected to add workers in 2012 are research and development, business services, health care and hospitality.

The institute predicts housing construction will increase by 15 percent to 5,700 units. But since the industry is recovering from depression-era levels, the impact on the labor market is not expected to be strong.

-City News Service

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