Economists' Outlook

Housing stats and analysis from NAR's research experts.
In each Economic Update, the Research staff analyzes recently released economic indicators and addresses what these indicators mean for REALTORS® and their clients. Today’s update discusses jobless claims.
  • It’s a very volatile period for the jobs market: initial claims for unemployment insurance for the week ending July 28 are up by 8 thousand claims at 365 thousand from last week’s revised (upward) estimate, based on data released by the Department of Labor.
  • However, due to huge drops in claims in some weeks in July, the average number of intial claims in July fell to 365 thousand from June 2012 levels and over the same period last year.

  • In a related development, ADP,  a payroll processing company, released yesterday a non-farm payroll of 163 thousand in July, down from 172 thousand in June. The official employment data will released tomorrow but based on the insurance claims data and the ADP Payroll data, we expect to see the same modest net job increase of about 80 thousand in July with the unemployment rate still hovering at 8.2 percent.   NAR Research Chief Economist Lawrence Yun projects a net job increase of 1.5 million jobs in 2012.

Notice: The information on this page may not be current. The archive is a collection of content previously published on one or more NAR web properties. Archive pages are not updated and may no longer be accurate. Users must independently verify the accuracy and currency of the information found here. The National Association of REALTORS® disclaims all liability for any loss or injury resulting from the use of the information or data found on this page.

Advertisement