Monthly NC Unemployment Statistics Are Misleading
Author: Rob K. Blake | Date: August 17, 2008 | Filed In: Mortgage News
The media in search for bad news recently reported North Carolina (NC) as having the worst unemployment number in 5 years with a month-over-month seasonally adjusted joblessness figure up from 5.9 percent in June to 6.6 percent in July.
On further research, the NC unemployment picture is not as bad as this one statistic shows or when compared to other states.
Comparing NC Unemployment
Using the chart below filling with data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, NC is not even in the top 7 with a 6.6 percent seasonally adjusted monthly unemployment rate.
Highest July Monthly Unemployment Rate
Michigan 8.5% percent
Mississippi 7.9 percent
Rhode Island 7.7 percent
California 7.3 percent
Illinois 7.3 percent
Ohio 7.2 percent
South Carolina 7.0 percent
Not only that, but when comparing NC unemployment year over year, they fair better. Another BLS chart with tell the story. Colorado, North Carolina and Texas all saw on a year over year basis what the BLS calls “statistically significant” employment increases!
Jobs, Housing, and Mortgages
Look how closely the job picture correlates with the housing and mortgage crisis. I know home values and the impact of the mortgage meltdown ( ie. foreclosures) is having a huge negative impact in Nevada, Arizona, Florida, Michigan,…so much so they have been designated by mortgage lenders and insureres as “declining markets”. These are the same markets hit by job losses year over year.
On the other hand, the areas that seem to be rebounding in home prices faster than other markets correlates well with the states showing robust job growth…Colorado, North Carolina, and Texas…
Maybe the mortgage meltdown wasn’t caused by declining home values as we are lead to believe. Maybe the root cause was the income reliability of stated income loans usually based on no verified employment…and returning to full document loans based on real employment is the pathway to a stabilized market…
Since the market is rebounding in states adding jobs…this is not an unreasonable conclusion.
In the immortal words of Sgt. Shultz,…Interesting…very interesting.
Good Luck!
Author: Rob K. Blake
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