ShareIn 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 unemployment claims.
- One week after the government shut down on October 1, the seasonally adjusted initial claims for unemployment insurance filed in the week ending October 5 shot up to 374,000, a hefty increase of 66,000 claims from the previous week’s level.
- This is one of the very few economic data being released during the shutdown. The Department of Labor releases the details of the data later, so there is yet no official breakdown of the change into federal and civilian components. Still, one could surmise that the shutdown has some relation to the increase, particularly among government contractors.
- What this Means for REALTORS®: NAR’s assessment of market conditions is that the effect of the shutdown on the real estate market is still minimal. However, if the shutdown continues, then more loans will not get processed in a timely manner. Expect the longer the shutdown, the more measurable the impact on the real estate sector.