The research focuses on employment and the workforce of 361 U.S. metro economies and it yielded some rather interesting key findings: 

Unemployment 
The study identified the May 2007 national unemployment rate of 4.5% as the lowest since 2001.  This unemployment rate has declined consistently since the decade high of 6.3% in June of 2003.  However, though the economy has experienced five years of continuing economic growth, it is not expanding at the rate of the last expansion prior to the 2001 recession. Additionally, employment growth measures nearly half than U.S. job growth nine years ago. This essentially means that 100,000 fewer jobs are being generated per month.

Construction jobs were among occupations with the highest unemployment rates at 6.8% with an average hourly mean wage of $18.90 an hour.

Labor Force
The U.S. labor force grew by 1% annually from 2000 to 2006. This is less than the 1.3% growth experienced last decade. This slowing of the labor force can be attributed to two main factors:

• Retiring baby boomers
• Less participation by youths and prime age workers

Labor and Wage Gap
The U.S. labor market is undergoing an increasing labor and wage gap. That is, the decline in unemployment rate since 2003 has been greatest among management, professional, and related occupations and lowest in natural resource, construction and maintenance jobs. For someone who works in one of the top five occupations (those with low unemployment), the average pay is nearly three times that of the bottom five (those with high unemployment).

Job Growth
310 metro areas have gained jobs in the past year and 49 have shown declines.  The losses occurred primarily in the Midwest led by Detroit and Cleveland.  Rates of job growth are greatest in large metros such as Phoenix, Dallas,  Houston and New York.

Real Estate Issues
The national average for subprime loan delinquencies was 14.7% in 2006. Cleveland's rate is more than 10 percentage points higher than the national average. In fact, eight of the 10 metro areas with the highest percentage of delinquent subprime loans are located in the Midwest.

For more information, e-mail Carlos Gutierrez in NAHB's Government Affairs Department, or call him at 800-368-5242 x8242.
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