Unemployment Worsens as it Gets Better!

Commentary is from Jim Eggers..

The Nevada and the Las Vegas area numbers again improved this month, but not because we added jobs and got people working. I see where unemployment improved in 32 states and hopefully some are because people started working instead of people falling off the unemployment back side.

 Nevada went from a work force of 1,385,700 in October to 1,371,800 in November for a loss of 13,900 jobs.  The number of unemployed went from 174,900 in October to 161,400 in November for a loss of 13,500 in the unemployed numbers.  We lost almost as many people off the unemployment numbers as we lost jobs.  I know that many who lost jobs are leaving the State of Nevada and some even the country, but that is a lot of people to lose from the unemployed numbers.

 The Las Vegas area went from 995,500 jobs in October to 985,500 in November for a loss of 10,000 jobs.  The number of unemployed went from 129,300 in October to 119,000 in November for a loss of 10,300 unemployed which is more than the jobs lost.

 I understand that the latest extension of benefits did not have any of those people able to apply in November, so I would expect that December will see many of them back on the roles.  My source indicates that they expected approximately 8,000 might be back on the roles.  Additionally we will have the movement of people to the MGM City Centre in both November and December along with the construction layoffs associated with the completion of the MGM City Centre.  We probably will not have good numbers until February when the January numbers settle down.

How does the unemployment affect the Las Vegas real estate market?  We will also have to wait for January or February to make that determination.  The holiday slowdown is in full force at this time.

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