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Labor Market Deterioration Has Picked Up Steam04-01-09 | News

Labor Market Deterioration Has Picked Up Steam

Residential construction (builders and specialty trade contractors) continues to be an important part of the deteriorating employment story, shedding 911,000 jobs since its peak in February 2006 and losing 226,000 during the last four months alone. Image courtesy of www.njconstruction.wordpress.comn

The current recession began at the end of 2007 when the job market started to lose ground, and the labor market has been deteriorating rapidly through February. According to the latest figures, nonfarm payroll employment has declined by 4.4 million since the recession began, and more than half of that decline, 2.6 million, has occurred during the last four months.

The unemployment rate has been moving up substantially from the cyclical low of 4.4 percent in 2007 and major increases have been recorded in recent months.

Indeed, the civilian unemployment rate jumped from 7.6% in January to 8.1% in February, the highest reading since 1983. The Labor Department?EUR??,,????'???s broadest measure of labor underutilization, including discouraged workers and those working only part time for economic reasons, soared to a lofty 14.8% in February ?EUR??,,????'??+ up by more than five percentage points over the past year.

Further deterioration of the labor market is inevitable, for both the housing sector and the overall economy. Expect large payroll job losses to persist through the second quarter and we expect the unemployment rate to peak out above 9 percent around the end of the year. ?EUR??,,????'??? Courtesy of NAHB