Tuesday, August 12, 2014

National Economic Outlook - August 2014



Written By:

Ingo Winzer, President
Local Market Monitor

The economy in general is doing well. Jobs are being created at the fastest rate in years, and the total number now exceeds the peak reached before the 2008 recession. Yet, unless you live in Texas, Colorado, North Dakota or one of the other energy regions, the real estate market has shown little improvement. Part of the problem is debt-related (too many homeowners still underwater), another is income-related (not enough well-paying jobs), but the result is that strong demand for real estate is still not here - an unusual disconnect from the overall economy.

The number of jobs in July was up 1.9 percent from last year. This included a 3.6 percent increase in construction jobs - still small but improving. Jobs were up 1.5 percent in manufacturing, 2 percent in retail trade, 3.5 percent in business services, 1.6 percent in healthcare, and 2.8 percent at restaurants.

Unemployment in July was 6.2 percent. As expected, the GDP results for the second quarter of 2014 completely reversed the poor showing in the first quarter.

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