ANN ARBOR – Washtenaw County is expected to add more than 12,500 jobs over the next three years, building on four consecutive years of steady job gains in the area.

That?s a key message from a 2014-2016 economic forecast conducted by University of Michigan economists George Fulton and Donald Grimes for The Ann Arbor News.

The jobs forecast is upbeat for the area; it shows Washtenaw County is in the midst of a seven-year economic rebound that will result in 31,147 job additions from the bottom of the downturn in 2009 through 2016.

By early 2013, the county surpassed its previous peak level of employment that was achieved in 2002, fueled by job gains in the professional and business services sector, health care and higher education.

Still, not everyone in the region is feeling the recovery, and the eastern part of Washtenaw County was hit much harder by the recession than Ann Arbor. The median wage in the county also declined by $599 per year from 2005 to 2012.

The employment-to-population ratio in Ypsilanti fell from 69.9 percent in 2005-2007, to 63 percent in 2010-2012, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Ann Arbor?s employment-to-population ratio remained steady at 75 percent during those time periods.

Fulton and Grimes have been forecasting local job growth since 1986, with an annual average error of 0.6 percent. Their 2013 forecast was accurate, with the projected job growth of 1.9 percent matching the actual outcome.

The county is expected to add 3,474 jobs in 2014, 4,247 jobs in 2015 and 4,864 jobs in 2016. That follows four years of job losses from 2006 through 2009, and four years of job gains from 2010 through 2013.

New jobs will be added across most major sectors in the county, reflecting a broad-based recovery.

Grimes called Washtenaw County?s economic resilience ?remarkable,? given some significant setbacks to local employment that have occurred. For instance, Pfizer?s closure in 2007 and the loss of Borders in 2011 resulted in thousands of layoffs in the region.

But as employment declined in certain industries over the past two decades ? the region shed 78 percent of its automotive-related workforce from 1990 to 2009 ? jobs were added in other sectors, such as state government. That sector includes the University of Michigan and its health system.

The forecast predicts Washtenaw County?s unemployment rate will fall from 5.8 percent in 2013 to 5.7 percent in 2014 and 5.1 percent in 2015. By 2016, the unemployment rate is expected to drop to 4.4 percent.

The region?s forecasted unemployment rate remains high compared to the 3.6 percent the county averaged between 1990 and 2007.