Skip to main content

US employment finally back to pre-bust levels, latest report ‘no game changer’ for housing | Inman News

As economists had expected, the latest employment numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that with the U.S. adding 217,000 jobs in May, the number people in the workforce has finally surpassed pre-bust levels, to a new all-time high.
Unemployment is still higher than most would like — 6.3 percent by the most commonly employed measure, and higher by others. The so-called U-6 measure, which includes 7.3 million people working part-time because that’s all they can find, stood at 12.2 percent, notes Calculated Risk blogger Bill McBride.
Long term unemployment remains a key problem, McBride says — 3.374 million unemployed workers have been on the hunt for a new job for more than 26 weeks. But overall, “this was another solid employment report,” the widely followed blogger wrote.
McBride says he’ll be retiring what some readers have called the “scariest jobs chart ever,” which he’s been running to show the severity of the downturn, “until the next recession.”


Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

Grass Seed Video

Read more

When Will Bank Foreclosurews ‘Normalize’? Team Thayer #realestate #investor #housing #market #news #oregon

With much of the talk surrounding the housing market centered on “normalization” or returning to its pre-crisis state, one metric which the market is watching is the distressed sales share—the share of REO and short sales that comprise total residential home sales. For February 2016, the distressed sales share declined by 2.9 percentage points over-the-year (and 0.4 percentage points over-the month) down to 11 percent, according to  data released by CoreLogic  on Thursday. At their peak in January 2009, distressed sales accounted for nearly one-third of all residential home sales (32.4 percent) but has been declining steadily since then. By comparison, the pre-crisis share of distressed sales was typically around 2 percent; CoreLogic estimates that if the current rate of year-over-year decline continues, the distressed sales share will reach the “normal” pre-crisis level in slightly more than two years. “Prior to the housing crash, the distressed share of total...
Read more

How Far Has the Economy Fallen in a Month? Team Thayer #realestate #housing #economic ##market #news #oregon

If the  May  Wall Street Journal  economist survey  is any indication, the economy is a lot worse off than it was as recently as a month ago. In the last three surveys conducted by the  Journal  in which economists are asked when they think the Federal Reserve  will next raise the federal funds target rate, the consensus answer has been June. In April’s survey, three-quarters of economists surveyed said they believe that a rate hike by the Fed will be announced at the next FOMC meeting on June 14 and 15. May’s survey told a different story, however. Less than a third (31 percent) out of the 70 economists surveyed said they believe the rate hike will take place in June; 21 percent said they believe it will take place in July. The same percentage of economists who believe that a June rate hike will take place (31 percent) said they think it will take place in September. What happened to the economy in the last month? A couple of setbacks—first,...
Read more