Arraya is right on this one. Somehow, a siginifant percentage of our working population just stopped looking for jobs. People are suppose to come roaring back to looking for jobs in a recovery, not fading away in ever larger numbers. But maybe people have just taken a breather for the holidays, I wanna see January numbers before I start to judge our stats.

As for the original question at the bottom of the OP,
More non construction jobs and less homes built = What for the housing market?

No one really knows. Usually it is housing that has led us out of recessions (job wise) and yet this time housing is still the poster boy of the debt problem we are having. (most of those jobs are coming in lower paying tourism and service industries) My guess is this means a long slow crappy slog with many many false starts and alot of happy talk from the ‘experts’ most of whom never saw this coming in the first place; let alone a way out.