Local Market Monitor (a National REIA preferred vendor) recently released their National Economic Outlook for April, 2017 where they share their thoughts on developments in some of the important subsectors of the U.S. economy.
National Economic Outlook – April 2017
April 13, 2017
By: Ingo WinzerBecause the government reports such detailed statistics about the economy, we can think of developments in some subsectors as leading indicators of what will happen with the overall economy in the near future. For example, we closely watch the number of jobs in truck transport and temporary help because we think these are quickly affected by a slowdown of demand. But the data for these subsectors, which are around one percent of all jobs, can vary a lot from month to month, so you can’t always be sure what they’re telling you.An even closer connection to demand is the number of jobs in retail stores. This subsector is much larger – about ten percent of all jobs – and if the data from the last few months can be believed, it’s telling us that we will see a significant slowdown sooner rather than later. In March, the annual rate of growth in retail jobs was 0.3 percent – compared to 1.4 percent in January and 1.7 percent a year ago. TV reports tell us this is just because more people are buying on-line, total demand remains the same. But people have been buying on-line for a long time, so I wouldn’t bet on that as the full explanation. The numbers may vary from month to month, but I’ll be watching the retail job figures very closely this year.
Largely because of the slow growth in retail, overall job growth in March was 1.5 percent – the slowest rate in five years. Jobs were up 0.3 percent in manufacturing, 2.2 percent in finance, 3.2 percent in business services, 2.3 percent in healthcare and 1.9 percent at restaurants. Unemployment was a low 4.5 percent.
About the Author: Ingo Winzer is President of Local Market Monitor, and has analyzed real estate markets for more than 20 years. His views on real estate markets are often quoted in the national press and in 2005, he warned that many housing markets were dangerously over-priced. Previously, Ingo was a founder and Executive Vice President of First Research, an industry research company that was acquired by Dun and Bradstreet in March 2007. He is a graduate of MIT and holds an MBA in Finance from Boston University. He resides in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
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