The Great Recession earned and richly deserves its capitalized moniker, given the breadth and the depth of the damage it wreaked. Now, five and a half years after it ended, we’re still in the midst of a small “r” recovery—one that in its early stages could barely be called that.

As we pondered what to include in our annual list of New Year wishes for the Inland Northwest, our underlying broad desire was to begin to see indicators that serve as an uppercase accelerant to our welcome, but frustratingly sluggish, economic upturn.

 With that in mind, here are a few of the things on our wish list for 2015 that we believe could diminish lingering uncertainty about the staying power of the gradually upward trend and put our local economy back fully on the road to Recovery. 

• Stronger gains on the job front.

Spokane County lost a total of about 13,500 jobs in 2009 and 2010, but—as the Journal reported earlier this year—had recovered only about 5,900 of them as of last year. It’s possible that the number of employed in Spokane County won’t get back to its 2008 level until 2016, if then.

That’s eight years of just trying to get back to even.

Nothing will lift the economic tide here as quickly as simply putting more people to work, including discouraged workers who have stopped looking. A rising job market also would provide key opportunities for the many people here who are underemployed, based on their educational and skill levels, to move up to more rewarding positions.

• A continued rebound by the Inland Northwest’s recently shrinking number of publicly traded companies, which tend to be some of its largest employers, and further expansion within the tech sector here, which has been performing well of late and offers some of the most exciting opportunities for job growth.

Particularly encouraging has been the strong performance of some still comparatively young companies, such as 12-year-old Next IT Corp., known for its software-guided, answer-giving avatars; three-year-old cloud computing company 2nd Watch Inc.; and five-year-old augmented reality software developer Gravity Jack Inc.

Also great to see has been a recent grassroots surge in the number of small tech startups here.

• A sharp upswing in energy in Spokane’s core, triggered by projects such as construction of the Davenport Grand Hotel, expansion of the Spokane Convention Center, and rejuvenation of the historic Bennett Block and surrounding structures.

To be sure, an exciting voter-approved, $64.3 million renovation of Riverfront Park, Spokane’s crown jewel, also will be a huge contributor to that energy. However, work on that project won’t begin until next fall and won’t be completed until spring 2019.

• Resolution of the dispute between Washington State University and the University of Washington over the creation of medical school here. Less important than which institution leads that effort is that it come to fruition, as soon as possible, to address a worsening shortage of physicians here.