Today the California Employment Development Department revealed, unsurpringly, that San Diego’s job losses have been severe. The latest update included a revision to last year’s data, which painted a bleaker picture of recent months than had previous releases. (This is also unsurprising, given some of the statistical jiggering that takes place with the job numbers).
The graph below shows the year-over-year rate of change for the three hard-hit sectors related to housing, as well as the rest of the economy and all sectors combined. Remember, this is a rate of change graph. So if a line turns up but is still below zero, as in the case of finance, that means that the sector in question is still shrinking, but just not as quickly as before. And if a line is below zero but flat, as in construction, that means that the sector is still losing jobs, but is doing so at a steady rate.
continue reading at voiceofsandiego.org
March 6, 2009 @ 8:07 AM
The final chart of the three,
The final chart of the three, correlated to the article headline, is by far the most worrisome. Here we are twelve months into a recession, and the unemployment number is accelerating upward.
I hope I am not the only one that concludes this ends badly.
The only optimistic note I think I can strike is that area unemployment is still lower than the state average.
March 6, 2009 @ 9:23 AM
After seeing that third
After seeing that third graph, I may change my username to “Fearful” also.
March 6, 2009 @ 11:11 AM
Well, let’s
Well, let’s see…unemployment soaring to record levels, 20% of all mortgages upside down and 12% of all mortgages slipping into non-performing status. I would say that by about Sept 2009, there’s going to be a very different world than the one we’ve all been bantering about on this site for the last couple of years.
March 6, 2009 @ 2:01 PM
We haven’t passed the 1990s
We haven’t passed the 1990s unemployment peak yet….
Looks like Sacramento beat out San Diego for this ignominious milestone (10.4% in Jan 2009 v. 9.3% in Feb 1993).
March 6, 2009 @ 3:07 PM
The huge housing bubble
The huge housing bubble bursting must have contributed to see this faster increase in job loss seen in the last graph… my 2 cents. I wasn’t here in 1990s but I was told that the bubble then was not half as bad…
March 6, 2009 @ 4:16 PM
The housing bubble was not as
The housing bubble was not as bad in the 90’s because the terms:
liar loan
neg am
0 down
125% LTV
5% 30yr fixed
did not exist.
March 6, 2009 @ 5:52 PM
What about “balloon
What about “balloon payment”?
March 9, 2009 @ 10:15 AM
I remember all of the housing
I remember all of the housing bulls saying that a 90s-style bust could never happen in San Diego because our unemployment would never get that high. They always said that in the 90s we depended on defense jobs but now we are more diversified.
I would like to laugh at this but unfortunately I might be the next to lose my job!
If only we had listened to Ross Perot — “We don’t hafta NAFTA!” maybe there would be more jobs here still…