By The Tim on November 4th, 2009 at 8:23 AM · 110 Comments
A reader wrote in requesting an update to this February post, in which I criticized Nancy Pelosi’s misleading chart of job losses.
Here’s an update to the post-WWII job loss chart, courtesy of Calculated Risk, in which I’ve added a mark so you can see where the “stimulus” was passed.
Wow, good thing we changed direction to the tune of $787 billion*, huh?
*(Actual cost: much, much more)
If there is any doubt about who the stimulus was really directed at saving, just take a look at an update to the stock market crash comparison:
Woo, go Wall Street!
Finally, speaking of bailouts for Wall Street and the banks: Congress Poised to Keep Homebuyers’ Tax Credit
The Senate and House are poised to agree on a compromise measure to extend unemployment benefits that also would expand a popular $8,000 tax credit for homebuyers, despite a recent government report on extensive mistakes and suspected fraud in the program.
The Senate might pass its version as early as Wednesday, and aides to Congressional leaders say the House could accept it this week, sending the bill to President Obama to sign into law. After weeks of partisan delay in the Senate, Democrats are eager to show progress before Friday, when the October jobless report is again expected to show high unemployment.
Super! So while people continue to lose their jobs, and absolutely zero of the underlying problems in the economy have been fixed, let’s pour another ten or twenty billion dollars into the housing market to try to keep prices propped up (i.e. – keep homes as unaffordable as possible) a little longer so our buddies in the big banks that got us into this mess can avoid taking losses.
Sounds like a plan to me!
Categories: Opinion · Statistics
Tags: depression, Jobs, recession, unemployment
By The Tim on October 28th, 2009 at 1:30 PM · 111 Comments
Quick note on the potential impact of a long-term departure of Boeing from the Puget Sound.
The Seattle-area economy is definitely more diverse than it was in the ’70s, but Boeing still dominates the employment base by the numbers.
A 2003 table from the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce shows Boeing employing more people than the next six-largest Puget Sound companies combined (Port of Seattle, Alaska Air, Microsoft, UW, Safeway, and the VA).
Here’s a crude visual of the size of Puget Sound’s top 10 employers based on the Chamber’s 2003 data linked above:
Here is some more recent data on Boeing, Microsoft, and Amazon (which was listed by the Chamber of Commerce as the 9th-largest local employer as of 2003).
Total Puget Sound Jobs
Boeing: 73,357 (46% of total headcount)
Microsoft: 40,224 (44% of total headcount)
Amazon: 10,850 (assuming 50% of total headcount)
And keep in mind that the numbers listed above are only those directly employed by Boeing itself. Many thousands more local jobs are directly tied to Boeing in companies that supply Boeing with parts and services.
In short, there’s clearly a lot at stake for the local economy (and by extension the local housing market) when it comes to Boeing’s long-term plans.
Categories: News
Tags: Amazon, Boeing, Jobs, Microsoft
By The Tim on October 22nd, 2009 at 6:00 AM · 20 Comments
Here’s a quarterly check on the jobs situation around Seattle, courtesy of data from the Washington State Employment Security Department. The style of these charts are stolen from the excellent San Diego housing reporter Rich Toscano.
First up, here’s a two-year chart (stolen from my subscription journal Sound Housing Quarterly) of the year-over-year change in some of the broad job categories related to housing:
As of September, construction was still bleeding jobs at a rate of nearly 20% per year, though the rate of change has at least leveled off since March. Finance and real estate jobs have shown a similar pattern, leveling off at around 7-8% year-over-year drops. No particular signs of improvement in the year-over-year numbers just yet though.
The following chart shows the volume of job gains or losses in the last 12 months in some of the largest Seattle-area industries:
The same three sectors that were hurting in our June update are still suffering as of September: manufacturing, construction, and professional / business services. Between the three, a total of 50,600 jobs have been lost in the last year. Health care was the only major sector that added jobs in the period.
Here’s a look at the same data, broken down by the year-over-year percentage change, to give a better picture of the relative health of various industries:
Construction sticks out like a sore thumb in this view, with finance / real estate joining the general range of losses seen in manufacturing and professional / business services.
Lastly, here’s a big pie chart showing all major industries that make up Seattle’s job market, to give you some additional perspective to the above data:
Source: Washington State Employment Security Department
Categories: Statistics
Tags: Jobs, job_growth, unemployment
Rich Toscano posted a great breakdown of the job situation down in San Diego yesterday that I thought was an interesting way to look at the data, so I’m shamelessly and blatantly copying it.
The following chart shows the volume of job gains or losses in the last 12 months in some of the largest Seattle-area industries:
Manufacturing, construction, and professional / business services were by far the hardest hit in sheer volume, losing a total of 42,700 jobs between the three sectors.
Here’s a look at the same data, broken down by the year-over-year percentage change, to give a better picture of the relative health of various industries:
Relative to its size, construction has shed twice as many jobs as any other sector, while finance / real estate, manufacturing, and professional / business services all also lost over 5%. Apparently if you’re looking for a job in health services, you have a much better chance than most any other industry in the last year.
Finally, here’s a big pie chart showing all major industries that make up Seattle’s job market, to give you an idea which sectors have the largest effect on the total employment picture:
Source: Washington State Employment Security Department
Categories: Statistics
Tags: Jobs, job_growth, unemployment
Lots of news has come out over the last few days regarding Boeing. Here’s a roundup of some of the big headlines.
Airbus extends air show order lead over Boeing
Airbus has now racked up $11.5 billion in orders and agreements this week, well ahead of Boeing, which notched up its first air show order on Wednesday — a $153 million deal with Japan’s MC Aviation Partners for only two jets.
Boeing shrugged off the Airbus announcements, saying the company doesn’t save up orders to announce at air shows.
Emotionless Boeing considering labor stability for 2nd 787 line
Chicago-based The Boeing Co. says that when it decides where to put a second 787 line, it will do so without emotion and will take labor stability into account.
…
Boeing’s vice president of airplane programs, Pat Shanahan, said that the decision on where to put a second 787 assembly line will not take a long time.
…
“There are opportunities that we need to assess and I’ve worked there for 24 years, I like the people in Seattle, I grew up in Seattle, It’s a great community, but when you have the customer telling you you’re making it really hard to choose your product because when we buy it you can’t give it to us,” said Shanahan.
Qatar Airways CEO blasts Boeing, may cancel orders for 787
“The writing is in the wall for Boeing, and they don’t care,” Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker told Dow Jones at the Paris Air Show. “They’re too busy having lunches and dinners.”
…
“Boeing doesn’t realize how much they’re hurting their customers’ plans,” he said. “They’re very much mistaken if they think we’re going to give them much more time on the issue.”
…
“Unfortunately, Boeing is not run by commercial people,” Al Baker told a group of journalists here yesterday afternoon. “Boeing is run by bean counters and lawyers. We have some serious issues with them, and if they do not play ball with us, they will be in for a serious surprise.”
Managing the drones: Boeing forms unmanned aircraft division
Boeing is forming a Seattle-based division to focus its efforts to win contracts to supply unmanned aircraft.
Boeing has a broad portfolio of unmanned systems, but has yet to win a major contract from the Pentagon. Boeing’s unmanned aircraft include the ScanEagle, Integrator, Phantom Ray, Hummingbird A160 and HALE.
Boeing still directly employs 73,760 people around the Puget Sound—roughly 40% more than Microsoft and Amazon combined. I certainly hope that Boeing doesn’t decide to begin migrating the majority of its operations elsewhere, and I’m not in a position to judge whether talk from large airlines about switching to Airbus is just corporate posturing, but you can bet that if either of those things do happen, the local economy (and by extension, the housing market) will feel it.
Categories: News
Tags: Boeing, Jobs, link_roundup, Local Economy
Here are a few relevant news stories that have popped into my inbox in the last few days:
In the last article, Aubrey Cohen picks up on the pending story we explored on here a couple weeks ago. The NWMLS representative he spoke with provided the same two explanations for the pending/closed discrepancy that we independently deducted here: short sales and the NWMLS definition change.
From Aubrey’s article:
Bob Gent, director of business development and member relations for the listing service, acknowledged the definition change had an impact. In fact, he provided statistics showing that the rate of pending listings going back on the market jumped from 1.5 percent in January through May of 2008 to 4 percent in June 2008 through April 2009.
But said the change could only account for part of the recent increase in pending sales. Take out all the pending sales that went back on the market last April and this April, and there’s still a 6-percent increase.
”Did it have an impact? Yes,” Gent said. “It’s not big enough to explain the situation.”
So why are the increased pending sales not yet showing up in closed deals?
“The length of time from going pending to close has increased dramatically in the past few months due to short sales,” Gent said.
You may notice of course that Mr. Gent avoids addressing the issue of how many of these “pending” short sales simply never close. Local agent and Seattle Bubble regular Kary L. Krismer points out some common reasons why short sales are often failing to close in the P-I comments:
There are a number of reasons a short sale could fall out, including:
- Buyer gets tired of waiting.
- Bank refuses to accept unrealistically low price, and buyer refuses to pay more.
- Seller figures out that the bank isn’t going to release the balance, and that they’re better off being foreclosed.
Again, I’m not contending that sales are not increasing. In fact I have predicted that they will increase as prices continue to fall, just as they have in other parts of the country further along the bust cycle than Seattle. I just think the combination of short sales (which fail more often than normal sales) and the NWMLS “pending” definition change are overstating the increase.
Categories: News
Tags: AP, Boeing, condos, Everett, Everett_Herald, Jobs, job_growth, link_roundup, pending, Seattle Times, Seattle_PI, small spaces, Tacoma_Tribune, unemployment
