Each day the Research staff takes a look at recently released economic indicators, addressing what these indicators mean for REALTORS® and their clients. Today’s update highlights new employment figures.

  • Today’s data on jobs was unambiguously good. Payroll jobs rose by 200,000—more than expected. At the same time, the unemployment rate continued to fall and is now at 8.5 percent—when many had expected an uptick after last month’s decline.
  • Trends we’ve observed for the past several months are seen in today’s data. The government continues to shed jobs, but at a slower rate of 12,000 jobs compared to a recent average of nearly twice that. The private sector is the driver of job growth. Additionally, the labor force shrank somewhat in December (by 50,000 workers), but the number of employed persons increased by 3.5 times that. Further, in the last 6 months of 2011, nearly half a million workers joined the labor force. The participation rate—those of the population in the labor force—is at a low last seen in the early 1980s, but the decline seems to have stemmed.
  • While the market still has not returned to normal—since early 2010 we’ve recovered about a third of all jobs that were lost in the recession and slightly more than a third of the private jobs that were lost since 2007—the positive trajectory is unmistakable, and a solid labor market is a good sign for the economy and for potential home buyers.