Economist's Commentary: April 7, 2008
Quick Take on the Economy: April 3, 2008
By Lawrence Yun, Chief Economist
The job market has weakened considerably. Nationally, 232,000 jobs have been lost in the first three months of this year. Over a 12-month time span, the nation still shows 536,000 net new jobs. Though those are headline figures, there are large local job market variations. The oil-patch states of Texas and Oklahoma are doing quite fine with job growth rate of 2.3 and 1.7 percent, respectively. Louisiana is also doing relatively well — partly from having oil and from residents returning to New Orleans. At the same time, Michigan — the hardest-hit state — continues to bleed jobs, losing 57,500 jobs over the past 12 months to February. Michigan has now lost 463,500 jobs from the peak employment 8 years ago.
Some states have now suddenly swung to a lost category after many years of solid gains: California, Florida, and Rhode Island. The two fastest growing states over the past decade — Arizona and Nevada — are now barely squeaking out positive job growth. All these states have been struggling on the housing market front.
To better anticipate housing demand potential at the local market, job market conditions should be one of the first items to examine. As of February, 240 metro markets reported job gains over the past 12 months, while 66 reported job cuts. The following table lists the hot and cold job markets in terms of both absolute job changes. The full data for over 300 metro markets can be found here.
| Top 5 Metro Markets | MSA | Net New Job Gains in 12 Months |
% Change |
| 1 | Houston | 86,000 | 3.4% |
| 2 | New York-Northern N.J.-Long Island | 74,400 | 0.9% |
| 3 | Dallas-Fort Worth | 70,900 | 2.5% |
| 4 | Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue | 39,600 | 2.3% |
| 5 | Atlanta | 29,900 | 1.2% |
| Bottom 5 Metro Markets | |||
| 1 | Detroit | -42,000 | -2.2% |
| 2 | Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana | 36-900 | -0.7% |
| 3 | Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario | -14,300 | -1.1% |
| 4 | Bradenton-Sarasota-Venice | -13,400 | -4.4% |
| 5 | Cape Coral-Fort Myers | -12,400 | -5.2% |
In purely percentage terms — to give smaller markets a better chance to be ranked — the big job gainers were Coeur d'Alene (Idaho), Kennewick-Pasco-Richland (Wash.), Grand Junction (Colo.), Odessa (Texas), and Florence (S.C.), all with 5% to 6% one year job growth rate. Three Florida markets of Bradenton-Sarasota-Venice, Cape Coral-Ft. Myers, and Naples-Marco Island were on the bottom list along with Blacksburg (Va.) and Flint (Mich.).
The local job market conditions should be closely monitored as they impact demands for both residential and commercial real estate.
* There is a data lag time on employment conditions at the local level so the latest data is as of February, while the national employment data is as of March.
This is one in a series of commentaries by the Research staff of the National Association of REALTORS®. Read more commentaries >
Comments? Questions? E-mail NAR Research.
