High unemployment and weak job growth will see Queensland take at least two years to regain its "sunny, feel-good" factor, according to separate economic reports released on Monday.
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But the state government has found reasons to be cheerful, citing improvements in housing construction, tourism and the foreign education market as highlights of the reports.
CommSec's quarterly State of the States index ranks Queensland as the fifth-best performing economy in Australia, unchanged from January, with strong business investment undermined by high unemployment and slow population growth.
Deloitte's Business Outlook for the March quarter reports "the headwinds hitting Queensland's economy have been gathering momentum", with the fallout from the winding down of the mining boom impacting sooner than expected.
However it recognised that Queensland had a "lovely" growth portfolio, with tourism and foreign education benefiting from the falling Australian dollar and housing construction and approvals lifting off the back of low interest rates.
Treasurer Curtis Pitt said that had led Deloitte to up its growth forecast for Queensland from 3.6 to 4.3 per cent in 2015-16, with a view that the state will carve out a bigger slice of the Australian economy in time.
"I am confident Queensland's Gross State Product will accelerate in 2015-16 and it's good to see respected analysts like Deloitte Access Economics boosting their forecasts for Queensland's economic growth," he said.
"The LNP slowed the Queensland economy, which makes our task much harder."
The Deloitte Business Outlook said output growth would boom once large-scale LNG projects currently under construction came online, but the result wouldn't feel as good.
"That is because the LNG production phase generating that export and output growth will bring less 'happiness', in large part reflecting its much more capital intensive and less labour intensive nature when compared with the LNG construction phase," the report reads.
"That is, growth will be good, but jobs will be less good, and a sunny 'feel good factor' may be in short supply in the Sunshine State in the next two years."
CommSec ranked Queensland the best state in business investment and construction work, but said "the soft job market and relative under-performance on population growth are constraining growth in home building".
Mr Pitt said there were no surprises in the two reports.
"We're seeing some encouraging signs for Queensland amid challenging economic conditions," he said.
"We have a pro-growth, pro-jobs agenda to get more Queenslanders back to work through initiatives such as the Skilling Queenslanders for Work program."
