This brings to mind kind of a related issue. How will all the peeps with real-estate related jobs show up in the unemployment figures? For instance, if a real estate agent hasn’t made a sale in 10 months or a mortgage broker hasn’t closed a deal since last summer, they won’t show up on the unemployment rolls with they? A lot of these folks may have already gotten second jobs that pay much less than what they were making during the boom. In that case, would they ever show up in the unemployment figures? I’m guessing not.

Since this is a real-estate related downturn, I expect that the unemployment figures won’t give an accurate picture of this economic slowdown/recession. Instead, average income will likely provide a more accurate depiction.